Us From Now On
by depression76
Summary: Why is it that we realize the importance of someone after they are gone? For it is hypocrisy and the human nature that blinds us to what matters the most.
1. Chapter 1

**Us From Now On**

**Chapter 1.**

* * *

**Summary**: Why is it that we realize the importance of someone after they are gone? For it is hypocrisy and the human nature that blinds us to what matters the most.

**AN**: First try at K-On! fan fiction. Ugh, I'm nervous.

**Disclaimer**: K-On! and its characters belongs to Kakifly-sama and Kyoto Animation. _Kansai Jyogakuin Daigaku _was created based on a real life Women University in Japan. You can look up Kobe College in Wikipedia.

* * *

_-"One day you will seek love and be sorry that you threw mine away."_

* * *

"_Ne…Mio?"_

"_Hmm?"_

"_I…I love you. More than a friend should."_

"_!"_

"_Do you…feel the same about me?"_

"…"

"_Mio?"_

"_I…"_

"…"

"_I…don't."_

"_!"_

"_I-I'm sorry!"_

"…"

"_B-But…we can stay as friends…right? You'll still be my friend, won't you?"_

"…_Of course. Don't worry, I'll…still be your friend."_

"_Thank you."_

* * *

(_ _)

* * *

The left over cold winds of winter blow swiftly across the courtyard. Seated on an empty table, a girl with raven black tresses gave a startled yelp when the wind blew especially hard and messes up the hair she took pride in. With a slightly irritated sigh, she untangle any knots the wind created as her grey –almost metallic- eyes scanned her surroundings.

A large courtyard filled with comfy wooden benches and polished stone tables meant for lunch or just for students to get somewhere new to study other than the library. Situated in the heart of _Kansai Jyogakuin Daigaku _(関西女学院大学,) or Kansai Women University, the courtyard was surrounded by the green environment the place provided…it was a place where serenity, calm and peace could be found easily.

Until lunch time came, though.

Akiyama Mio could only stare in a comical fashion as a horde of rampaging students exited the buildings and fought hard for the remaining sets of empty tables. Yes, people love this spot so much they'd fought hard to claim possession of the few stone tables even for several minutes' worth of relaxation. In Mio's defense, she'd been here since 9 am to claim a possession of a table. She doesn't even have class today!

"Mio-chan!"

The girl with the black tresses turned and spot a slender blonde girl weaved through the crowd and headed for her. She waved.

"Over here, Mugi!"

There's no way she'd mistaken, for there was only one natural blonde in the whole university. Kotobuki Tsumugi gave her a radiant smile as she sat down on the bench across from her, flipping her blonde hair back as she goes.

"Do you want some tea cakes, Mio-chan? I brought a few in case you came today," yes, Mugi hasn't changed much since high school. Except for the longer hair and the now gone Sakuragaoka Koukou uniform.

"Um…I don't think eating here would be a good idea now, Mugi."Mio's words halted Mugi's hands before she could take out the perfectly wrapped snack out of the basket.

Mugi looked surprised at her friend's answer. The blonde then looked around her and sweat-dropped as she saw what Mio meant. The smell of tea cakes would make the hungry students around them go crazy, especially free ones at that. They wouldn't want a riot to start because of Mugi's cakes now, do they? Once was enough.

"Arara…"the Ojou-sama gave an understanding chuckle, and return the snacks where it belonged. For now.

The bassist gave a small smile and leaned back against the comfortable wooden chair, closing her eyes and tried to block out her surroundings.

A small tired sigh escaped her lips. One that her blonde friend would never miss.

"You still couldn't sleep, Mio-chan?" came the worried voice of the keyboardist. Grey eyes snapped open and stared up at the dim sky which suspiciously seems to mirror her mood today.

"I could…but, it's not really…well,-" Mio buried her face in her palms, massaging both her tired eyes "the dreams," she should stop there. Yes, Mugi should know what she was talking about. Mugi was always there for her since _it _happened.

And Mio was right, for Mugi now wore an understanding expression, accompanied by guilt and sadness. There were things Mugi could say to her sleep depraved friend right now; to say comforting words and to soothe her out of her fears and worries... But that was unacceptable and the Ojou-sama knows that. For she, who has not experienced what the bassist had been through, had no right to say that she understands. The words would sound hollow to the ears.

The only thing Mugi could do was to take one of Mio's hands, wrapped her smaller ones around it and gave her a smile. That would surely be enough.

"Mio-chan~, Mugi-chan~" A familiar voice broke through the slightly murky atmosphere. The two broke out from their positions and turned towards the call.

"Ah- Yui-chan!," a brunette slumped on the empty spot beside Mugi with a lazy sigh, her nose sniffing for familiar smells "good afternoon Azusa-chan."

"Good afternoon Mugi-senpai, Mio-senpai..eh? are you alright, Mio-senpai?" The twin tailed rhythmic guitarist of Houkago teatime looked worriedly at her raven haired senpai who was knuckling her eyes with both fists with vigor.

Mio nodded furiously and smiled a smile too small to the others and too wide to her liking. Azusa sat down beside her looking slightly worried. Mio glanced around at Mugi and gave her a grateful and slightly embarrassed smile, which the blonde returned.

Hirasawa Yui took the spotlight by rolling her head on the cold stone table beside the keyboardist "I'm sooo hungry…Mugi-chan, didn't you say you bring some cakes?"

"Senpai! We promised not to eat them here, didn't we?"Nakano Azusa hissed low enough so the others around their circle wouldn't hear. Apparently, she didn't forget the riot that had taken place last year.

Yui only shot her a cute pout and whined like a kicked puppy. Azusa had to hold back her squeal from the onslaught of moe-ness. Giving a throat clearing cough, she turned towards her two more reliable senpais.

"Um…so, what was it that you wanted to talk about?"the smallest of the four didn't miss the brief glance shared by Mugi and Mio. The latter shifted her eyes away, always a foreboding sign. Even Yui peeked out from her comfortable spot to listen to what her two friends had to say.

This morning Yui and Azusa received mails from Mugi saying that there was an important meeting this afternoon. Those two had an idea of what the meeting was going to be, but prefer to hear what the sender had to say.

"Well, ne…"the keyboardist looked really uncomfortable talking about it for some reason "um…shouldn't we wait until everyone's here?" a desperate attempt to change the subject.

"But Ui isn't in the band, right? So it's everyone here." Yui said what Mugi had been evading. Their bassist gave a noticeable flinch.

Smiling in sympathy at Mio, the blonde turned to the other two "yes. That's why…um, I think, no-_we_ think…we should get a drummer."

There were no surprised expression on Yui and Azusa's faces. The only thing there were expectations and worry for the one now sulking on the corner. All of them knew the problem, and know that this topic should come up sooner or later if they wanted to stay as a band.

For now that Tainaka Ritsu was not with them anymore, leaving only memories and a sense of betrayal.

Mio fingered her shoulder length black hair, the one she'd cut short when she found out that she'd lost her best friend, silently and morosely. She did not cry or let out a sob when this topic reaches her ears. For she had run out of tears when Ritsu ran out on them 2 years earlier.

* * *

(_ _)

* * *

It's hard to write angst when there's a chibi Ricchan walking all around your desktop screen being all cute and adorable. No! Bad ricchan! Go away!

**Chibi Ricchan**: Nani suru no, kono yaro?

**Me**: HNNNNNNNNNGGG…! It's definitely a bad idea to install the K-On! Desktop Application. Does anyone else think so?

Anyway, your thoughts would be much appreciated. Trolls and flames however, will receive the wrath of a scorned Mio. Later!


	2. Chapter 2

**Us From Now On**

**Chapter 2.**

* * *

Summary: Why is it that we realize the importance of someone after they are gone? For it is hypocrisy and the human nature that blinds us to what matters the most.

AN: To be fair, this story would be set in a slow pace, so we could _really_ feel the pain of a heart break that felt like a white-hot blunt knife was thrust deep into your heart and could be taken out by twisting it really, _really_ slowly. Yeah, I'm a masochist like that. But that only works if I got this right, so…fingers crossed.

Disclaimer is on page one.

* * *

-"_"It's so hard to forget someone that gave you so much to remember"_."

* * *

Mio couldn't stop wondering how her Mam- Okaa-san!, yes, how her dear Okaa-san managed to get her do things she doesn't want to do with only a few simple words.

Just when she was thinking of sulking her spring break away on the dormitory, her Mother sent her a text message.

_**Sender: Okaa-san**_

_Mio-chan, won't you come home for spring break? Papa, Usagi-chan and I miss you very much._

_–Mama_

The next thing she knew, she was on the first train home in the first day the Uni was out for spring break.

Her University was actually a couple of towns away from home. Her parents had originally suggested her to stay at home and commute to school by car. Mio had put up a meaningful argument about independency and group studies that made her parents waver on their decision and finally relent on her living out in the campus dorms with her friends.

As if. Mio knew very well what her real reasons are for staying away from home, other than the fact that Mugi, Yui, Ui and Azusa were staying in the dorms too and she doesn't want to be left alone.

The bassist let out a pitiful sigh. Her friends would never let her live it down if they read her Mother's message, especially Azusa now that she'd found out that her admirable Mio-senpai still sleeps with her childhood rabbit doll named 'Usagi-chan'(damn that sleep talking habit of hers!). She'd manage to sneak off without proper explanation and escape unnecessary teasing. But… the teases really went down a notch since Ritsu left, so it's a little bit bearable now.

Ritsu.

'Not again…' the raven haired girl said as she ran a hand down her face for the countless time this morning. She hated it when her thoughts strayed over to her now absent best friend. Doing so made her mood go down drastically and might render her incapable of speech for the next several hours lest she burst into tears or something.

The last time she cried in front of people was when Ritsu uses that Tengu mask to scare her during a trip to get Mugi a birthday present. Ritsu received a bump as big as her school bag for that one.

Ugh.

Mio gave up on trying to forget. She just have to live with the fact that the world and God loves to makes fun of her, especially when she's down.

The train stops and announces that they have reached their last destination for today. Mio shouldered her bass and her carryon bag, and descended the train while texting Mugi about her returning home several days for spring break.

Lifting her head, Mio was awarded with the sight that had accompanied her first 17 years of life and was engulfed in a familiar feeling of sentimentality.

"I'm…home."

* * *

"Eeeh…Mio-chan went home?" Yui moaned as she lounges on Mugi's dorm bed, looking as lazy as ever. The guitarist had come over to Mugi and Mio's room to play since Ui and Azusa were spending the day away on the library doing their projects. As much as Yui loved her sister and kouhai, there was no way in hell she'd go and study for the sake of snuggling against a very cute Azu-nyan.

And so, the brave Yui tried to laze the day away by bothering her other two friends, which has went down to one since the other one left for home.

Mugi nodded at Yui's previous question, still not looking away from her phone as she text back a reply to her roommate.

"I think she really needs it." the blonde added after a beep signaling that the text was sent sounded. Mugi look up to see Yui looking as comfortable as ever on her bed as she sat on her desk. She couldn't help but smile after seeing her old friend's antics.

"Un, I agree…"the brunette flopped on her stomach and played with a stray thread on the bed, looking like she was thinking hard "Mio-chan…hasn't been sleeping well since Ricchan left, right, Mugi-chan?"

The blonde nods solemnly "it's apparent, isn't it?"

Yui nods again as she sat up and wrapped her arms on a pillow, now moving onto the empty bed of her bassist friend "Mio-chan looks tired, even when we don't have exams coming."

Mio's sleepless nights begun after graduation. It was better than crying all the time, but…it pains Mugi to see her friend in such a state. The Ojou-sama who was sheltered by her family since her birth and had difficulties in making friends greatly treasures the friends she had made in High School. She'd do everything in her power to help them.

Thus it was painful for her to only see, but not to act.

"Why did Ricchan left again, Mugi-chan?" _STAB! _"Did Mio-chan tell you anything?"

The ball nearly hits home. Leave it to Yui to approach painful subjects innocently.

Shifting uneasily, Mugi answered "Um…Mio-chan actually didn't know why…I think Ricchan didn't informed any of us about her leaving."

"Really?"pondering large brown eyes stared unwaveringly against blue. Blue eyes shifted away in defeat.

"Really."A lie. Not the first in Mugi's books, but Yui doesn't need to know. She was saved from further interrogation by the shrill ring of Yui's merry ringtone. The brunette flipped her pink phone open and squealed seeing the caller.

"Azuuu-nyaaaan~" she cooed loudly into her phone, making Mugi forget of feeling guilty for a brief moment. The blonde could hear their kouhai saying something about not yelling out because she can hear Yui just fine. Yui, bless her, just gave that innocent 'heheh heheh…' and people would forgive her for anything.

_Forgive._

_Would Mio-chan forgive her if she knew?_

Blue eyes strayed to her desk where a frame bearing all 5 members of Houkago Teatime was placed between heaps of books and sheets of homeworks.

Mugi doesn't want to lose anymore of her friends.

"Mugi-chan!" a loud call of her name that nearly sends Mugi flying out of her seat. The keyboardist looks around at her companion who was now tidying up her slightly rumpled t-shirt "Ui and Azu-nyan wants to get dinner at that Chinese restaurant down the road. Do you want to come along?"

Anywhere but this suffocating room "of course!" And the blonde could only gather up her things and left with her friend without anymore thought of the subject.

_It was for the best. She'd understand._

* * *

She should've known that returning home while her friends don't means she had no one to go out with. Without anywhere particular to go too, the bassist ended up walking around aimlessly after meeting up with her parents, who had stayed home to greet her first day back.

Mio texted Nodoka (her only hope), and found out that the ex-Student council President had decided to spend her spring break over in Kyoto. Ah, Nodoka ended up in Kyoto University, where Mio had been recommended too.

The bassists smiled to herself as she remembered that she chose to go where her friends were going to in case she was left by herself again. And she had not regretted in that decision.

The crossing light turned green as Mio walked forward. The passing group of giggling school girls shouldering their guitars gave her a moment's déjà vu. A moment where she felt that she was back in High School. Where when her world was still whole.

She could still see herself in the Sakuragaoka uniform, bidding goodbye to Yui, Mugi and Azusa at this particular road. The three of them crossed the street to the station as she and Ritsu resumed their walking home. The trip home with Ritsu were always fun. Well, it was fun on her expense, but it was still enjoyable. For here, away from the eyes of their friends, the both of them could return to being the close friends they are.

You know, the way Mugi was always staring at them made Mio really uncomfortable to get touchy with her childhood friend. Once the blonde left…well, let's just say that Mio became bolder with her touches.

The raven haired girl halted her steps suddenly and looked up.

Ah.

Another Déjà vu.

Mio was in front of the music store she and the Houkago Teatime knows best. You know…the one whose clerks were abused repeatedly by them.

With a smile, she went in and nearly went berserk at the sight of a lefty fair. Some things never change.

Her grey eyes stared at the left handed Bass Guitars that were on sale and compared the prices. Not that she was going to buy it, of course. She was currently happy with Elizabeth. Her reminiscence was cut short by a melody coming from a nearby speaker. Always curious when it comes to music, Mio stepped closer to the speaker and listened to a rock song currently being played.

_Nice guitar riff._

_Whoa, nice voice ranges. Wonder if she or Yui could sing like that._

_A funky bass solo? Wow._

She was silent when a drum solo went on in the song. The beats…it sounds…familiar? Where had she heard such familiar rhythm? The quick, precise beats. The particular timing where the cymbals were hit rather unnecessarily. Were there two bass drums? Hmm…

"Ojou-san?"

Mio was too busy listening to the song to hear that someone was calling her.

"Um…ano…You're Tsumugi-Ojou sama's friend right?"

Mio's ears perked up at the mention of a certain blonde's name and hurled around, nearly slapping the poor clerk with her akimbo arms.

"Yes! I'm Mugi's friend." Now that she had faced who was calling her, the raven haired girl had a rough guess who this person was "um…You're…the one..."

The brown haired clerk nods, a bit happy that Mio remembers him.

He was the one Ritsu bullied with her merciless haggling when she first bought her drum set. He was also the one who sold Yui the Gibson Les Paul for only ¥ 50.000. Mio felt so apologetic suddenly.

"I'm sorry," she suddenly gave a bow.

The clerk looked uncomfortable as he got an idea what Mio meant "no! T-that was fine. Um…it's been a while since I saw you last. I was curious where Tsumugi-Ojou sama's friends were since you were our best costumers," the clerk said with a smile. Mio wondered if Mugi's dad paid them extra for having to attend to her abnormal friends.

"Ah…we're all in college now, so…"

"Ah, yes. Sachou said about Ojou-sama going away to college."

Mio nods a bit awkwardly. Then she noticed that the guy was looking around for something.

"What's wrong?"

The clerk looked surprised at her question "I was looking for your friend. The drummer, right? You two were always together, and I wanted to tell her I finally have the Zildjian cymbals she was always looking for."

Mio was afraid of this. She was afraid people would realize that Ritsu was not here, with her. She was now alone, missing those annoying yells and teases so much she wanted to cry.

A plastic smile was all it took "Ah...she moved away after graduation," she felt like puking.

"Eh? She's not with you?"

"No…"and it was not a lie.

The bassist couldn't remember how she left the store and escaped the clerk's painful questions. She just walked as her mind dove into another memory

* * *

"_T-They moved?"_

"_Yes. It was a bit sudden, all of us were surprised as well, especially since you were not informed, Mio-chan."_

_After a several days of lost contact with Ritsu, Mio decided to pay the brunette a visit. Imagine the shock when she found out that the whole Tainaka household had moved away after graduation day._

_Mio bowed at the friendly uncle who was Ritsu's next door neighbor. She'd known Ritsu neighbors so well since she came over so frequently and the Tainaka household felt like a second home to her._

_She was hurt. Really hurt._

_Not by the fact that Ritsu left._

_It's the fact that she left without telling her._

_Why was she not informed? Wasn't she important to Ritsu? She thought they were best friends! They've promised that they'd tell each other stuff…from important stuff until some useless ones like how Ritsu hated Mio's hair when its braided together…_

_Or…was it all just an empty promises? And she was no more than a face between the crowds?_

_Tears pooled rapidly on her grey eyes and Mio had no intention of stopping them. The tears flow down unhindered as her body shook hard, and raking sobs filled the silent evening air. She cried like she'd never cried before. Her heart felt like its breaking apart now that reality was sinking in._

_Was she the one who pushed Ritsu away?_

_So many questions…and no time for any answer._

_Mio collapsed on the sidewalk like a broken doll whose strings were cut loose. She wailed for the loss of a friend...and a broken thread of friendship._

The bassist had to reign in her emotions as she stood at the same exact spot 2 years ago. Staring at where the Tainaka name plate was held before…she fingered the board that had the word 'ON SALE' in bold red print written on it.

It felt like a dream, when Ritsu left. A bad dream where Mio couldn't wake up from. A never ending circle of regrets.

The familiar burn around her eyes appeared as she closes them. They said tears and pains healed with time.

But why won't hers?

"Ritsu…Where are you?"

* * *

Was that enough amount of angst yet? I haven't cried in a while so it's hard to get in character with someone who had to cry and wail after losing her best friend while you're laughing because you're watching Family Guy. =w=

I'm sorry.

Your thoughts would be much appreciated!

* * *

**Notes.**

**Okaa-san:** Mother. Mio had this flair of blurting out the fact that she still calls her parents 'Papa and Mama' which are usually used by lil kids in Japan.

**Usagi-chan:** Rabbit. Chan is a term of affection

**Ojou-san**: Miss. The clerk called Mio this as she's the costumer on his store.

**Ojou-sama**: Young Miss. The clerk uses this term on Mugi's name because Mugi's father owned the whole store and its freaking chain stores. So she's practically their boss too, I think.

**Sachou**: A term for the Head of a particular Company. In this case, Mugi's father is the head of the family's Conglomerate.

**Zildjian**** cymbals**: I have completely no idea what's the difference between this and the other cymbals. I just put this in because my favorite drummer uses it (The Rev) and it costs a lot of money.


	3. Chapter 3

**Us From Now On**

**Chapter 3.**

* * *

Summary: Why is it that we realize the importance of someone after they are gone? For it is hypocrisy and the human nature that blinds us to what matters the most.

AN: A day in the limelight for YuiAzu. By the way, I cried after watching episode 20. I'm not the only one, right?

Disclaimer is on page one. Beware of choppy grammars.

* * *

-"_Deep in my heart, I'm suffering, knowing that I've lost you. On the outside, I'm living, pretending that I've forgotten you.__"_

* * *

"_Well well, you're a new face around here."_

"_Looking at the location where this dump is situated, you probably have a lot of 'em coming in, eh?"_

_"Good point. So…does that cheeky mouth need a drink?"_

"_I'm…underage, but I couldn't care less. I'll have a round of your cheapest."_

"…_Heartbroken eh?"_

"_No…I'm in love."_

* * *

"JANG JANG JANG! JA-JA-JA-JANG!"

"Yui-senpai! Please stop with the nonsense yelling!"

"Eh…? But I finally find a good melody for a new song~"

"You did?" Azusa looks up at the sky, in case it was falling. Nope, it wasn't. "Are you sure?"

"Yep! Here, it's like this." A strumming of a guitar.

"Ah! That's good…"

"Isn't it? Ehehehehe…"

"So it's like this?" Muttan finally strums the melody, joining in as a duet.

"Eh? No, it's like this see? It went JANG-JA-JA-JANG right here…"

"No, I think it was JANG-JANG-JA-JANG…?"

"What…in the whole round world, are you talking about?" a deep voice called out between the confusing conversation. Yui and Azusa looked up at a long haired guy who was looking at them with a confused expression.

"Ah, Shin-chan! We were playing around with a new melody," Yui said cheerfully at the newcomer, whom she was quite familiar with.

The guy sweat dropped as he remembered the pieces of their 'conversation' "ah…so, the JA-JANG stuff were…notes?"

Azusa felt her face burns "I'm sorry. We'll try to be quiter." The guy laughed at her expression and left the two, still chuckling all the while. Azusa turns to her carefree senpai with the usual dose of a pout and a mild glare.

"Mou, you don't have to be so loud you know?"

Yui only looked at the twin tailed girl with an innocent expression that melts even the thickest ice "but that's fine, right? We know Shin-chan after all…"

"Even so…"

Kannagi Shingo was the name of the long haired guy, who was also the clerk of the Recording Studio Yui and Azusa were at right now. After they moved out to the college dorms, what's left of the HTT swore that they'd keep on playing music as a band. Now that they don't really have a club room anymore, and Mugi's villa was not available, they'd resorted on to practicing at a music studio.

The Mishima Studio was the studio HTT frequents and with time, they made a new friend in the clerk (whom Yui called Shin-chan) who always had the misfortune of working his shifts while HTT was visiting. Now that they were at a different place, Azusa couldn't help but wonder why they _still_ found some poor clerk that was always bullied by the innocent brutality of the Houkago Teatime members.

The rhythmic guitarist could only stare at her senpai who was jamming to a completely different melody she randomly strum on her beloved Gitaah. The topic of 'having-found-a-melody-for-a-new-song' was instantly forgotten.

_Where are Mio-senpai and Mugi-senpai?_

(_ _)

"Achoo!"

Mio turned at the cute sneezing sound and found her blonde friend rubbed her nose delicately. Mugi was the only person who could be graceful even when sneezing.

"Are you okay?"the raven haired girl said as the two of them descended the long stairs of the Kansai Women University Library. They were just done doing research for a project and was heading towards the studio for another band session.

The blonde Ojou-sama nodded her head, sniffing "I think it's the dust. Saa, let's not keep Azusa-chan and Yui-chan waiting!"

(_ _)

"Working on a new song again today, Azusa-chan?"Shingo called out from behind his counter where he was currently counting today's earning. HTT had been practicing more frequently lately after their bassist, Mio, written a new song which lyrics were thankfully provided by Azusa. Shingo had the privilege to hear the raw demo as the band's apology for always making a mess during his shifts.

Azusa nods from her seat in one of the empty couches inside the studio's front desk, her fingers played around with her turquoise pick "Yes. Now that Mio-senpai was back from visiting her parents, we figured we could get the song done by today."

"Without a drummer?"

"Eh? Um…"so far, HTT have been using Mugi's keyboard drum set to fill in the hole left by their drummer. It's not perfect, as the blonde herself had stated that she doesn't know much about drum beats, and Mio had to share her small knowledge of drumming from watching Ritsu. Shingo knows about this fact, and had never bothered to ask about it. Until now.

Azusa didn't know how to answer him without going into a full-length explanation of yes, they want a drummer, but they didn't want to replace their old drummer either. She turns to Yui for help, but the latter was currently busy snuggling her Gibson Les Paul.

Hearing no answer from the twin tailed girl, Shingo shifted the topic smoothly "you know, if you're looking for a drummer, there're a couple of them available. You can see their names and phone numbers there on the information board," he nodded towards a particular wide space on the wall where posters and flyers and all sorts of papers were stuck on.

It was the studio's information board and it also serves for advertisements board for musicians looking to join a band, someone selling their second-hand instruments or about an upcoming concerts and performances and stuff. The flyers on them were always changed and the ones with the expiring dates would always be taken down in time for a new one to take the place. It was always an interesting experience to browse around the endless names of musicians, indie bands of different genres that existed around Japan.

Hearing someone outside the band saying about replacing Ritsu-senpai gave Azusa's heart a pang, but she knows that the clerk doesn't mean it _that_ way since he doesn't know why HTT doesn't have a drummer in the first place.

"Ah-yes, thanks Shingo-san."Shingo were 3 years older than Azusa and 2 years older than her band mates. Yui just had this knack of calling everyone with '-chan' added on their names regardless of their ages.

The kouhai left her seat unnoticed (Yui was now humming a song about mochi ice cream) and went to the information board. It doesn't hurt to look, right? Mugi did say that they need to look for a drummer after all…

As her eyes went through the papers stuck on the info board, Shingo put in a CD on the studio's stereo. Angry rock music blasted out in maximum volume from the speakers stuck on the four corners of the small room, jerking the three people inside it out of their thoughts.

"I'm sorry!"Shingo wailed as he turned down the volume quickly before any eardrums were destroyed. Yui was on the floor, cushioning Giitah that fell out of her grasp and Azusa was covering her ears with both hands, tail twitching in surprise.

Um…tail?

"Are you guys alright? I'm so sorry about that…the last guy must've forgotten to turn down the volume…"

"Ow…my ears…"

"I'm okay!"Yui jumped up with both fists in the air and wearing a victorious look "whose angry song was that, Shin-chan?"

"It's _'Kami-iro Nagareboshi'_ by '**Intoccabile**" the clerk answered as he dove below the counter to retrieve fallen stuff thanks to the rock music explosion.

"A foreign band singing a Japanese song?"Azusa stood up from her previous spot on the ground, still rubbing her ears. She saw what looks like Shingo's forehead shook from behind the counter.

"No, they're a Japanese Band. Indie though."

"Eh, Japanese band with a name _Into-in-kabi-_?" Yui's marks on spoken English were often in the red; this failed attempt at Italian should have been obvious. Her kouhai gave a tired sigh as Shingo chuckled, back from his adventure from beyond the counter.

"It's _In-to-ka-bi-re_. They're all Japanese people, though their guitarist grew up in Italy and that's probably why they used an Italian word for the band name," the clerk explained as he waved an empty CD case which disc was being played right now.

Yui took the CD case and stared at the cover in silence. Not able to read the words written in foreign alphabets, she passed it on to Azusa without another word "what does the name mean, Shin-chan?"

The clerk sweat dropped "eh…um...I…I don't know?"

The only brunette in the room gave a cute frown and cocked her head "hmm…and I thought you're a fan…"

"I'm sorry," Shingo was apologizing for his lack of knowledge in Italian.

"Don't worry, I don't understand Italian either! And English too!"

"Don't sound so proud, please," Azusa said from Yui's right, slightly worried for her senpai's future. With a sigh, she returned onto reading the song list on the CD case. The song names were in katakana and a few were in simple English which were easy enough to understand.

Although the pigtailed guitarist doesn't really understand alternative rock, she knew quite much to say that this band's ability was far above HTT's "they're really good…"she said softly which Shingo heard.

The guy grinned smugly "I know, I've been following them since their first single. This one here is their second one. There's a poster of their next concert on the board there, if you're interested." He was talking about the largest poster on the board where the band's name were amongst the few written in non Japanese letters.

"Hell Fest?" Yui asks as she followed Shingo's eyesight and read the large-font katakana printed in bold red on jet black background.

"It's an upcoming indie concert in Tokyo. Intoccabile is going to play there as well."

The girls ooh-ed in awe. Azusa wondered if HTT could play on a concert someday while Yui was wondering if HTT could get their name printed in large bold letters on large papers stuck on all over town.

With a deep thoughtful frown, Azusa was positive that they needed a drummer.

A clear chime sounded as the studio door opened "Hello?" two figures with blonde and raven heads appeared, looking curiously at the three people gawking at the info board.

"What are you guys doing?" Mio wondered as her band guitarists stared back at her, one with her mouth opened. Mugi only let out a giggle as she went over the counter to take the room key Shingo was holding out. The room they usually used was the biggest one, since the small one made Yui felt like suffocating.

"Mio-chan! Mugi-chan! We were talking about a band! They're really cool!" Yui informed her two friends excitedly, arms akimbo now that Giitah was safely slung over one shoulder "Shin-chan is playing their CD right now!"

Mio and Mugi immediately registered the rock song playing on the background and nodded. The bassist felt like she'd heard the song before.

Shingo was feeling a bit proud that his favorite band received good reviews by these girls who played their instruments like a couple of mad geniuses, especially Yui, whom the girls said had the perfect pitch.

"I was telling Azusa-chan about them earlier," a fist hits a palm as Shingo remembered something and turned on Mugi and Mio "I heard you're looking for a drummer? I have the name list ready, right here," he pats his jeans pocket smugly, apparently satisfied with this brilliant move "I've personally sorted out the drummers that suited your band genre, so, you can trust me on their abilities!".

The once noisy room quieted down in an instance. The clerk blinked at this unexpected comeback. He was expecting showers of thanks and gratitudes.

"Eh?"

The girls were exchanging weird looks at each other, and the tension made Shingo really uncomfortable. Did he do something wrong?

"Um…"

"_Please_, mind your own business, Shingo-san," Mio's cold tone whipped through the air as she went straight down the hall where their room was situated without another word, raven black hair whipped around her form angrily. She walked away without a glance back to her equally yet mildly shocked friends. Snapping out of her shock, Mugi could only give Shingo an apologetic look before she hurried forward to follow the bassist.

"Gomen, Shin-chan," Yui said before she and Azusa followed on, bearing the same troubled expressions as their blonde keyboardist after returning the CD case to its owner.

Shingo felt really bad.

That was his fault right? He must've said something wrong.

The studio clerk heaved a sigh and rumpled his shoulder length hair.

His straying eyes ended up on the Hell Fest poster showing the 4 members of 'Intoccabile'.

Kannagi Shingo had a great idea.

* * *

Not much (none!) angst now, since I wanted to shed some light on something that would be important in the future. This fic also shows the side of a drummer-less Houkago Teatime. No, I havent forgotten that it was supposed to be angst/romance. You have to remember that K-On! is also about bands/music right? That's the sub-plot :-D. I'm going to make this up in the next chapter, promise. So dont bail out on me, now! O.o

I changed the band's name **5 damn times**. I'm so bad at naming stuff on the spot. By the way, I'm looking for a beta, is anyone interested? Grammars just don't agree with me.

1)** Kami-iro Nagareboshi** = Paper-colored Shooting Stars (don't ask where the title comes from).

2) **Intoccabile **= Italian for 'Untouchable'

**P.S.**

HUT RI ke 65. Semoga engkau mencapai kedewasaan dalam ekonomi dan berpolitik.


	4. Chapter 4

**Us From Now On**

**Chapter 4.**

* * *

**Summary**: Why is it that we realize the importance of someone after they are gone? For it is hypocrisy and the human nature that blinds us to what matters the most.

**AN:** I screamed when Yui accidentally cut off her bangs. Now, _that, _is scary.

Disclaimer is on page one. Still needs BETA.

* * *

-"_After months of having to live without you, I've realized I've lost me when I lost you.__"_

* * *

The room was silent except for the soft breathing coming from the bed across from hers. The lights had been turned off, yet with the windows slightly open, the moonlight shone through and dimly light up a part of the small room.

Still wide awake and feeling that she won't be able to go to sleep again today, Akiyama Mio gazed upon into the night sky in boredom. Leaning against the wall and sitting up while hugging both of her knees, she lets her mind wander aimlessly. Night time was the best time to get sentimental and melancholic without worrying about anyone's scrutiny, which includes her closest confidante's and friends.

Her metallic grey eyes caught sight of the tickets placed upon her desktop, bathed under the soft beam of the moonlight and remembered the events that took place.

_The air inside the recording room was particularly subdued this particular afternoon. After hearing Shingo's suggestion on replacing Ritsu and with him stating that he even had several new drummers to choose from…Mio lost control. She was really angry that someone could say it so easily like that! As though, Ritsu did not matter much to them! She could take it if her it were her friends who said that. But, if the one saying those things was someone who doesn't know any damn thing about their situation…! Ritsu was irreplaceable and she wanted the guy to know that getting a new drummer was the heaviest decision the whole band had to make probably in their whole short career!_

_She strummed a particularly angry bass note which trembled through the stagnant air and could feel her pick trembled dangerously under her very tight grip._

"_Mio-chan," a gentle voice called out as scrapping of a chair was heard. Mio turned around to see Mugi dragging a spare chair and her (heavy) keyboard towards the chair where the bassist was currently sulking at "you know Shingo-san didn't mean it like that." Leave it to Mugi to know exactly what was bothering her, though it didn't really take a genius to know why the normally calm girl flared out in a fit without having anyone teasing her._

_The bassist only watched silently as Mugi adjusted her keyboard so she could play it while sitting down as she talked to the distracted raven haired girl. Mugi glanced sideways to see their band's two guitarists heavily absorbed in memorizing the new chords of their new songs. Those two might not look like it, but they were also worried for Mio, and the keyboardist would be the one taking the brave step for them in confronting their bassist head-on. The blonde let out a smile as she saw the familiar scene of Yui having another of her genius moment that rendered her kouhai speechless._

"_I know…"Mugi heard her raven haired companion answered softly and she turned her attention back to their conversation "I know he didn't mean it like that. But-but, it's just…I was- I don't know, the way he said it just makes me so- so angry somehow..."_

"_Don't you think you're angry at the wrong person?"_

_A widening of grey eyes and its owner whipped her head around to the one saying that. Clear blue eyes clashed back against hers unwaveringly and innocently._

_Mugi lets out a gentle smile to let the bassist know that she was not disparaging her "I think you're just tired." _The blonde knows very well how badly her friend had coped with their drummer's departure.

"_No, I'm not." Mio's voice was trembling and was slightly louder that she'd meant it to be, for now Azusa and Yui were looking at them with worried eyes, afraid that another fight has broken out "I'm not tired-"_

"_You're not?"_

"_No! I-I'm hurt! I'm confused!" Mio was now standing in all her glory as she ranted, a usually rare sight for the others to see" I'm furious…I-I…" the raven haired girl calmed down as she notices her friends' worried looks and took her seat back "I'm a jumble…" she ended softly, her fingers whitening in a tight grip upon Elizabeth's dark form._

"_I think you're heartbroken." Mugi said, lowering her tone to Mio's to not have their two friends worried about them and stop their practice._

_Of all the unbelievable things Mugi could've said, this one baffled the bassist the most and snapped her out of her small rage "w-what? H-how can I be?" she was rendered to stuttering once again "a-and, how…?"_

_The blonde only gave a gentle know-it-all smile, making Mio even more flustered than she was now. _

_Broken hearted? Her? About whom? _

"_Anyway, Mio-chan, it's better to apologize," the keyboardist stood up and stretched "I think he's feeling really guilty about it."_

"_I know."_

But what had happened next was not quite what Mio had expected. After their studio time was over, she went straight over to the front desk, only to find the long haired clerk busy on the phone. The bassist told her band mates to wait outside for her, since she wouldn't be able to apologize properly if anyone's watching due to her extreme shyness.

"_Ah? Is that alright?"Mio could hear parts of Shingo's conversation on the handheld device and directed her attention to something else to make it less awkward "Yes! That's great! Thank you once again," the wireless phone was put back on its stand._

_Now that Shingo's done, the bassist opened her mouth to apologize only to have the studio clerk beaten her to it._

"_Are you free for the rest of the spring break?"_

"_W-what?"_

"_See, I feel really bad about prying into your personal business just now," Shingo grinned guiltily, though Mio know full well that that was her fault "so, I'll make it up to you guys. I just got 4 extra tickets to Hell Fest in Tokyo next week, backstage pass and all, and was wondering if Houkago Teatime would like to come along?"_

_Tokyo? Hell Fest? What the-?_

_Seeing the blank look on Mio's face, Shingo waved his hand towards the large flier on the info board "Hell Fest, where the band Intoccabile is going to play. 3 days straight of live performances and it's all on me. Well, except for the train fares, I haven't much money for that one," he added sheepishly._

_The bassist was speechless._

And that was already yesterday afternoon. Tomorrow, they're going aboard the first Shinkansen on to Tokyo and probably watch their first indie band concert. The other members of HTT had different reactions when Mio had told them about the free tickets. She couldn't quite believe the band's stroke of luck to have endless free opportunities of going to different places. Like the yearly trip to the beach during High School and the free tickets Sawa-chan gave them to the Summer Fest. This trip might be good for their band, since watching the more experience bands in action gave them enough inspiration to continue their dream, which was and still is, to reach Budokan together.

Mio gave a small snort as she realized her thoughts. Well, for once, she's not feeling down and gloomy.

Her hands lowered from their previous position of hugging her knees and she gave a small start as her left hand brushed against a slightly rough material. Her eyes gazed down and saw a slightly worn out, frilly bright pink cell phone bag. Her left hand picked it up and her sharp eyes caught sight of the small figures of a badly sewn-on embarrassed-looking rabbit and a cheeky-looking squirrel with a slightly large forehead.

She had almost forgotten…

Pink lips curled up on both corners as she remembered that she had sewn on those animal figures during Home Economics class somewhere during middle school. The rabbit for her…and the squirrel for her best friend. Ritsu was a bit offended that her forehead had to be mirrored in her choice of animal and she had kicked up quite a fuss, demanding Mio to take it off and changed it so something cooler. Mio never did.

A quiet chuckle escaped pink lips as she took out what's inside of the bag. Her old pearl-white slide cell phone that she'd used back in High School laid on her palm, looking worn out- but still in a good condition. She didn't use this phone much anymore, since it now has a slightly different use for her.

Mio fingered the screen and traced the worn out keypads with calloused fingers, remembering when she had typed furiously on them as she texted her impatient best friend. The phone slides open, and the screen lit up before the wallpaper image appeared. The sight of it was bittersweet.

There, as the wallpaper, was the photo she and Ritsu had taken right after their class play of Romeo and Juliet had ended. The Mio in the picture had a slightly embarrassed look and a rather pink hue on her face. Her drummer best friend, on the other hand, was grinning so widely like all was fine in the world and had curled one arm around the bassist's neck. Both looked tired, mentally and physically, yet they're both happy. Very happy. Mio smiled as she went to the picture folder and browsed through it, seeing the old photos she'd taken during her high school years and dove into old memories.

This phone was now serving as a memory box to her. It held all the past memories she shared with her K-On! Club members, most especially with Ritsu. The picture folder on the phone held old photos during outings and random snapshots, the inbox still saved the hundreds of texts she'd received from her best friend with various topics. And in the notes…there were song lyrics, and most of them were incomplete since the departure of her muse.

Was Ritsu her muse? Probably.

Ritsu, with her endless teasing, gave her random inspirations that she usually puts down together into song lyrics. Like the song 'Pure-Pure Heart', some of the idea's she'd gotten for it were from of one prank Ritsu pulled on her during the way home from school. True, her lyrics were mostly girlish and too…um, fluffy for the drummer's liking. Mio just never told Ritsu that the reason that she'd gotten ideas for those 'fluffy girlish' stuff was all thanks to her best friend's pranks and play on words. Imagine the look on Ritsu's face if she did.

Her finger stopped when she reached a particular picture. It was a random shot Sawa-chan took during one particularly lazy time in the clubroom just before graduation. All the third years had received their final-exam scores and all that was left was the graduation ceremony, their University entrance exam results came out after graduation. In it, Mugi and Yui were both smiling widely at Azusa, who had the misfortune of being coaxed in wearing the nekomimi once again, and this time as a graduation present, Yui had said. Mio herself was also laughing at the three, her expression carefree and happy, not knowing what would happen just in weeks' time.

Grey eyes focused on a figure in the corner of the picture.

They said that pictures can sometimes show the emotion of its objects. Mio had never really believed in it, not until now. You see, ever since they'd become friends, Mio had come to know Ritsu as the energetic, happy girl. Never did she see her head-band wearing friend gets all down and gloomy unless she's down with a sickness. But here…in this last photo that had Ritsu in it…

She wasn't smiling.

The usually radiant pair of amber eyes was clouded with emotions. Lips that were usually curled up in a cheerful manner were upside down. And the expression she had on her face…was something the bassist had never seen before.

Painstaking grief was one word Mio could say about that expression. It was foreign on Ritsu's face. And it was very painful to see, especially when those eyes were directed at the unsuspecting Mio.

Ritsu…she never showed any expression like this. Not even after Mio's rejection! If it's even possible, after the rejection, Ritsu had become even kinder to her, to the point that she was the best friend a girl could ever have. The drummer stops being so obnoxiously annoying around her. She stops playing prank and teasing her for the fun of it like she usually did. Ritsu laughs less and smiles more and generally becoming subdued…

Something clicked in place.

Ritsu might seem okay on the surface, but she had changed on the inside. Now, 2 years later, the signs were brutally clear to Mio. The bassist had a feeling that something was off with the drummer then, but she had shrugged it off, simply thinking that her childhood best friend was finally maturing.

Mio closed her phone and buried her head between her folded knees as realization dawned upon her. That photo was taken days after the drummer confessed to her. Days after Mio turned her down.

How could she be so _blind? _

It was all her. She was the cause of Ritsu's grief and possibly, maybe, the reason why she had changed as well.

The signs were there, the warning signs! Ritsu didn't tease her anymore. She didn't poke fun at her mushy lyrics out of necessity. She didn't blurt out a 'boo!' and scared Mio shitless every chance she gets anymore…And it was really hard to contact Ritsu for a get-together after school...

And during graduation, right _after _the graduation ceremony, Mio could faintly remember that Ritsu had a heated agreement with Mugi near the school gates. She remembered being worried about them, but with her fan club going berserk around her, asking for autographs, photos and whatnots, Mio couldn't do anything but only to watch from afar.

What had happened?

What did they talk about?

Did Mugi know Ritsu was leaving them?

The bassist eyed her sleeping roommate, half-wishing that the blonde would wake up and answers the torrent of questions that was clouding her mind right now.

She shifted and fell limply on her bed, exhausted both her body and mind. White cell phone clutched tightly in her right hand, its screen went to screen saver and showed all the pictures it had in its folder. Fingers tightened around its plastic shell as its owner curled on her side.

Mio was tired, so _damn _tired of it all.

She was tired of being left in the dark, wondering and groping aimlessly for anything about her childhood's friends whereabouts… and tired of having all her past stupidities shoved right back in her face.

The bassist let out a dry sob.

It really hurts, so, very much. Her heart felt like it's breaking apart all over again every time she remembers Ritsu's abrupt departure.

Suddenly…Mugi's words came back to her.

"_I think you're heartbroken."_

With…Ritsu?

How could she be?

Didn't she reject Ritsu's confession?

It should be the other way around, right?

What she feels for Ritsu…was only friendship. That was clear enough, wasn't it?

This was all so confusing to her. Mio had written lyrics about break-ups and heart breaks before, but she also never had her heart broken so she couldn't be sure. And this feeling…here in her chest, that always came up when Ritsu flooded her mind, this suffocating feeling…what was it?

The sadness that came over her whenever she had thought that Ritsu had thought of her nothing less than a mere friend…

And-and even the smallest thought that the said drummer was now having the time of her life, somewhere out there, moving on and forgetting everything about her was enough to make her eyes burn.

This onslaught of painful loneliness that threatens fresh tears to pour out of grey eyes that had promised not to cry anymore…This suffocating feeling from being left behind by the person she held close…Never had she felt like this before.

These feelings were new to her, and they scared her as much as they confused her.

With her mind getting foggy, Mio knows that she wouldn't get her questions answered for the time being. The last thing that ran over her mind before sleep claimed her was that even though Mio doesn't know what this feeling was…one thing was crystal clear to her. She was missing Ritsu terribly. She misses the light Ritsu had brought into her life.

Ritsu was…and still is…the sunlight in the bassist's now dark and cloudy world. And she always will be.

* * *

I just realized that those people that usually wrote about love, heart breaks and break ups either had it happening to them right at that moment, had it happen to them in the past or was just imagining to be in the position of being involved in it. I think of Mio as the last, the dreamer and romantic she is, her muse of love songs came from the fairy tale romance she dreams about and yearns for. But reality's a bitch and they kept on bullying her.

A bit distracted during this chapter, hopefully this turns out okay. As usual, thoughts are appreciated.

**Notes:**

Why a squirrel to portray Ritsu? It's a pun on her name since _**Rizu**_ means squirrel in Japanese.


	5. Chapter 5

**Us From Now On**

**Chapter 5.**

* * *

**Summary:** Why is it that we realize the importance of someone after they are gone? For it is hypocrisy and the human nature that blinds us to what matters the most.

**AN:** Sorry. The first week back has been hell. I have to work hard to keep up with the weekly updates. I'm stressed, and thus, this monster was born.

Disclaimer is on page one.

* * *

_-"Love puts the fun in together, the sad in apart and the joy in a heart."_

* * *

The trip to Tokyo was generally uninteresting so far to say the least. Other than giggling at Yui and Mugi mess around with Azusa along the ride, Mio didn't really have anything to do. The bassist was very tired since last night's thinking caused her to fell asleep at 4 while they have to leave at 9.15 for the 2nd Shinkansen heading to Tokyo.

Mio was tired, confused and was very cranky, thanks to the brat who kept kicking the back of her seat obnoxiously. A cranky Mio wasn't a really nice Mio, that's why she preferred to stay quiet in case her emotion gets the best of her. Her grey eyes strayed over to her right where the green scenery flashed by as their train zoomed towards Japan's number one metropolitan city. The scenery was a bit different from when they were going to Kyoto in that school trip during High School. The way to Kyoto was filled with endless green meadows, and old temples adorning here and there. Now, towards Tokyo, all that were seen were buildings, trees, and more buildings.

Watching outside the window gets boring very quickly at this rate.

Letting out a sigh, the raven haired bassist took out the concert tickets Shingo had gave them 3 days ago. Speaking of Shingo, he took off for Tokyo a day early since he had some work to do there. The girls were going to call him once they arrived in Tokyo, though Mugi had said that she wouldn't mind calling a driver from her aunt's uh…mansion to pick them up.

Again, the HTT had to impose on their keyboardist's kindness, though the blonde herself doesn't mind. Mugi said her aunt had lent them her mansion to spend the week in for this trip, since she was currently out of the country, travelling. Mio felt really bad about using Mugi every time they went on a trip with the band.

"Mio-chan?"

"Can you read minds?" Mio asked with a laugh as she turned to the blonde. This wasn't the first time Mugi had spoken when the bassist was thinking of speaking to her.

The blonde laughed along as she gets the joke "again huh?" Mio nods with a chuckle as Yui forced Azusa to wear a tiger striped neko-mimi for the entire ride across their seats "well…I can't read minds, but I can see when someone's having negative thoughts."

"Can you?"

"Yes. You, especially, since you start frowning like this when you're thinking dark and serious stuff," Mugi gave a comical frown and glared at the window, prompting the raven haired bassist to laugh as she imagined herself caught by her friend countless of times while looking this absurd.

Laughing feels good in a while, though Mio couldn't honestly say that she was laughing sincerely.

"Seriously Mio-chan," the blonde continued, looking a bit worried as she peered on her friend's baggy grey eyes "you should try to relax a bit more. You're looking a bit pale."

Grey eyes blinked tiredly as its owner shrugs "I know…but it's hard to relax. Every time I tried to relax, it felt like something wasn't right and I'm back to thinking about Rit- unwanted stuff again…"almost a slip, though the bassist knew her friend too well for her to miss this. Mugi was the most perceptive person she knew. It's hard hiding stuff from her…while the blonde herself seems really mysterious at times.

The keyboardist was silent, only giving out a gentle smile at her friend's problem. That what Mio like from Mugi. Mugi doesn't give people empty words of comfort or fake understanding…especially on the bassist's situation. The graceful Ojou-sama just gave a comforting nod, a gentle smile and Mio knows that she, along with Yui and Azusa, would always there for her.

"So, um, about this concert…what was it called again?" grateful for the change of subject provided by her friend, Mio quickly scans the ticket for the concert name.

"It's called 'Hell Fest'," the raven haired girl gave a slight shiver as she remembered Sawa-chan and her Death Devil "don't tell me…we're going to a death metal concert?" just thinking about it makes her want to return to her corner of woes, block out her ears and filled her mind with fluffy stuff in order to escape the dark music world of screams and bangings.

Mugi could only let out a sympathetic laugh "No, I don't think so," she heard a relieved sigh from her right "I think it's a rock concert…but Shingo-san didn't really tell me anything about it."

Mio nodded to that, remembering that only Yui and Azusa were informed of what this concert was "ne, Yui, Azusa, what do you thi-" she stops as she caught sight of the two guitarists fell blissfully asleep with the younger's head leaning on the brunette's left shoulder. The two of them made such a cute sight.

The bassist blinked. No wonder it had gotten so quiet.

The blonde on Mio's left side exploded into a giggle fit which managed to crack a small smile on the bassist's fair visage. HTT's guitarists sure get along very well, no matter how vehemently Azusa tried to deny it.

"It seems like they're only available for questioning once we reached Tokyo, Mio-chan," Mugi chuckles as she leaned back on her comfy seat, took out her camera and took aim at the cutely sleeping girls "but, we're not far now, right?"

The black haired bassist nods as she mirrored her friend and leaned back on her seat, trying to be comfortable enough for the ride ahead. Looking at Mugi, Mio remembered about the thoughts she had last night and the memory of the blonde arguing with Ritsu on graduation day resurfaced. She made up her mind.

"Ne…Mugi?"

"Hmm?" seeing that Mio's tone dropped a notch, as though she was going to talk about something serious, the blonde keyboardist sat up straighter in her seat and listen with her out most attention "what is it Mio-chan?"

The raven haired bassist fidgeted under the attention and wondered how should she brought up the topic "um…well, it's about graduation day," she stopped and after seeing a nod from Mugi, continued "well, did you- no, what did you talk about that day? Do you remember? With Ri-" the rest of her words were drowned as announcement sounded from the loud speaker then, saying that they will arrive in Tōkaidō Shinkansen Shinagawa Station , Tokyo, in another 10 minutes.

Yui and Azusa woke up with a start, rubbing their eyes, stretching and yawning as Mio frowned at the announcement.

"That's our stop, right?"The bassist asked her blonde friend distractedly, afraid that somehow they had taken the wrong train and ended up somewhere else. Her heart calmed down when the blonde nodded in affirmation.

"Yes, we'll get off in Shinagawa Station," blue eyes glanced at the 2 sleepy girls across from her before returning to grey pair of irises "what were you saying, Mio-chan?"

Mio flinched. Oh, God. The first time trying to talk about it was awkward enough, maybe now's not the right time to talk about it after all "ah, umm…nothing. I'll-maybe later," _please, please let it go! _She prayed as she saw a thoughtful look flashed across Mugi's face.

"Okay…" _she doesn't sound too sure! _Mio thought with a grimace "anyway, let's get ready now, Yui-chan, Azusa-chan, it's our stop," the keyboardist turned to their other friends as the train slowed down to prepare for its stop. At this, the bassist sighed in relief, hoping that Mugi will forget this awkward conversation with time.

(_ _)

"Oh. My. GOD."

Three pairs of jaws dropped at the sight that greeted them. When she said Mansion, Mugi wasn't really kidding.

The band ended up getting a ride in the Kotobuki Limousine since Shingo, their designated driver + tour guide, couldn't make it until around lunch. The ride in the limousine was filled with awkward silence, staring and several free cakes courtesy of Mugi which helped melted the tension. Yui had fun in playing with the buttons and almost had her head stuck in the glass divider that was between their seats and the driver's.

And now, several minutes later, they have arrived and personally witnessed the wealth of the Kotobuki family in Tokyo. Mugi's Aunt's Mansion had security posts stationed at the gates, which according to the blonde, there were 2 of them; the back gates and the front gates. A long, very long driveway from the front gates later, the HTT was greeted with the sight of a 2 stories western-styled building that looks very much like an ancient cathedral. As the limo slowed down, the girls could see Greek statues and several ceramic birdbaths decorated the green shrubs at the sides of the mansion. Rows of expressionless maids and butlers lined up outside the main entrance, all bowing in sync as the band got out of the car albeit a bit awkwardly.

Seeing the luxurious scarlet red carpet adorning the front steps for them, Yui, Mio and Azusa looked at each other rather uneasily. This…was a bit too much, right? But none of them had the heart to say it to their blonde friend who was looking at them with nervous expectation. They couldn't say it even more when they realized that each maids and butlers holds a small basket full of…flower petals?

Yui, Azusa and Mio could only stare blankly at the welcome reception, especially when the maids and butlers started throwing flowers at them.

Several seconds passed in silence.

Tsumugi-Ojou-sama fidgeted nervously when her friends stayed silent, unmoving "i-is this not enough? I can um, well-" she should've checked up with her Aunt about this beforehand!

"This is very enough, thank you." the others cut her off quickly.

Mio felt slightly overwhelmed with all the grandiose treatments she received, and swore to herself she'd make it up to Mugi for this later, no matter how.

"Um…" the blonde keyboardists still looked a bit uncomfortable, wondering if these were too much "shall we go in?"

The girls blinked out of their stupor, and nervously nodded as they went inside the building. The butlers and maids were too kind to them. Yui had to wrestle Gitaah out of a butler's hold, insisting that she can carry 'him' by herself.

(_ _)

Kannagi Shingo tapped his feet impatiently as he waited on the driveway of the Kotobuki Mansion. He was supposed to pick up the HTT girls earlier, but couldn't come since something came up in his schedule. To make up for it, he came to the Kotobuki Mansion an hour after their arrival in Tokyo to give the girls a Tokyo tour on his prized Volkswagen Touran MPV.

The music studio clerk bowed his head awkwardly as a group of maid passed him, each of them carrying plastic bags as though they were back from the market. Shingo knew that Mugi was loaded, but he didn't know that she was _this _loaded and owned a mansion that's probably the size of a quarter of the city of the freakin' Tokyo itself!

A loud creaking of doors alerted him and he turned around to see the Azusa, Yui, Mugi and Mio came out from the front door, accompanied by the horde of Kotobuki maids and butlers.

"Have a nice trip, Ojou-sama," the eldest of the butlers bowed at Mugi which then was followed by the other maids and butlers. Even though they lack a bit of emotion in their words, it was clear that they meant it in their gestures. He could see the blonde keyboardist looked a bit uncomfortable with the display and gave a hurried 'thank you' before pulling her friends towards the him who was waiting on the driveway.

"Sorry about that," the keyboardist apologized for the several time, a bit red from embarrassment "I already told them not to do that, but…"

"That's fine, Mugi-senpai," Azusa said quickly, feeling a bit awkward every time this subject was brought up "that's their job after all..."and it's not very nice to refuse what the household offered, especially when you'll be staying and imposing on them for a whole week.

The long haired clerk waved at the girls in hello from his place by his lime-green colored van as Yui ran up at him "Shin-chan!" the brunette exclaimed as she high-fived the only guy in the group, who grinned back at her "so, did you find the place easily?"

Shingo gave a laugh and nods as he turned to Mugi "I did, thanks to Mugi-chan's detailed instruction. And thanks for telling the security guards outside that I'm a friend, they won't let me in otherwise!"

When Shingo had arrived outside the Kotobuki Mansion's gates half an hour earlier, he tried to enter the premises, insisting that he knew Mugi. The security didn't believe him and almost dragged him off to the Police Station for trespassing if not for the blonde Ojou-sama who happened to call Shingo's cell phone at that exact moment and talked to the guards about him. That was a close one, and the poor guy was still having cold sweat from that experience.

Shingo noticed that the band's bassist was a bit quiet, rubbing her eyes tiredly, and looking quite a bit out of place amongst the cheerful girls "You okay, Mio-chan?" he worriedly asked. The raven haired bassist looked up at the call of her name and gave a tired smile.

"I'm fine, just lacking a bit in the sleep department," a nonchalant wave of her hand which signaled the end to that question. The guy nodded, afraid of butting in into personal territories again like last time. Yui heard the exchange and grabbed Mio's arm and clung like a leech.

"Hang on, Mio-chan! We'll be touring around Tokyo now," she said excitedly and it's hard for the bassist to resist her cheerfulness. Yui's cheeriness was contagious "you can go to sleep all you want after we're done, kay?"

Mugi gave a cheer as she and Azusa climbed on the backseat of the van. Yui clapped Mio's back in a reassuring manner before following Azu-nyan, who yelped when her senpai glomped her after they sat down. The raven haired girl fought off a small grin as her mood lifted and the day began to look brighter. Bless that girl, she thought with a small laugh.

Seeing that there's no option left but to seat shotgun, the bassist climbed aboard the vehicle as gracefully as she can without flashing anyone (she was wearing a skirt and the Van was a bit high) before closing the car door with a definite snap as Shingo clicked his seatbelt in place on her right. She mirrored him out of habit, safety first right?

"Ready, everyone?" the clerk asked with a cheery voice, to which was answered with a cheer from the backseat, one was rather hesitant "then, let the tour begin!"

(_ _)

Tokyo, being one of the busiest cities in the world, was obviously packed with people. Mio knew all these and yet, she was still taken aback at how many people were crossing the street when the red light came before the lime-green van they were riding in.

She heard a soft cuss escaped the person seated on her right and she marveled at how sharp her hearing was, hearing something like that beneath the loud chatter from the backseat. Must be because of those time playing music and straining her ears to listen to the low notes of the bass.

Mio gave a small smile at the driver "frustrated?" it was an attempt in starting a conversation; she mostly kept to herself throughout the ride.

The clerk looked surprised at the question and gave a humorless laugh "no kidding," he waved a hand at the sea of people crossing the street " I love Tokyo and all, but I can never get used to the sight of a quarter of Tokyo's population crosses the street every time I hit a red light. The small roads are not helping when you drive a car around and it's frustrating whenever you have to go somewhere quick and you get lost because you don't know the area well to drive around without GPS," the light turns green, and Shingo stepped on the pedal with a relieved sigh "finally!" the car moved into a decent pace, slow enough for the girls to look around but not slow enough to get them honked on from behind.

Mio's eyes glanced upon rows and rows of musical stores that were practically located all over the street. During their quick lunch after leaving the mansion, Shingo had asked what kind of tour does the girls wanted and he received a unanimous agreement to embark on a musical tour. To be short, the guy showed them around the musical part of Tokyo, stopping on old CD stores to get some old CDs, an old music collector store for the girls to spoil their inner fan girls, and he even stopped at outdoor venues for them to watch bands playing a street live, some kind of a rare sight from where the girls came from, even though looking for an empty parking spot was plain hell.

Now, 5 hours after the tour had started, the bassist was burdened by 3 paper bags filled with old magazines, CDs, bass picks and whatnots, her sling bag was filled with small memorabilias from the collector store, and another bag filled with half empty snacks and canned drinks sat on her feet. Mio glanced behind at the girls on the backseat who shopped as much as she did as they indulge in this blissful trip. Even Yui, who was a newbie in the musical world, was screeching like a banshee when she saw a worn out Japanese Magazine fully dedicated itself in all about Jeff Beck shelved on one of the old sections in the collector's store. A sure sign that Azusa's sense of music has been rubbing off on her in a good way.

Her wandering grey eyes were met with amused blue as she awkwardly smiled back. The conversation that took place at the train came to her and Mio idly wondered if Mugi had forgotten about it. Probably not.

"So, " Shingo's voice broke her from her musing and she looked up at the driver as the others stopped their chat and tuned in, in interest "we are currently at Meida Dori Avenue in Ochanomizu. This whole area is filled with shops that dedicated themselves to satisfy the hunger of all musicians by selling the best musical instrument out there," a dramatic pause now that he realized he had his guests' full attention "anyone want to stop over?" That was a teasing question.

Complains filled the car immediately.

"Mou, I don't want to buy anything anymore!" Yui clutched her purse tightly in defiance, afraid that the pink object would fly out of her grip any moment and start prancing out to one of the stores. Azusa seems to agree with her, as the pig tailed girl morosely eyed her purse, where she had splurged on the money more than she had intended today. Mio's feet nudged the many bags under her seat and felt guilty about spending so much money already, and they just arrived this afternoon!. Mugi was smiling as serenely as ever until one thing caught her attention outside the window.

"Ah!" she exclaimed softly which garnered the others' attentions "that's my father's store…" The van literally shook as all tried to shift themselves to the left side to catch a glimpse of said store.

A large board with the word 'Kotobuki' in bright yellow romaji stood up above a 3 storied building wedged between rows of similar looking stores. It's a bit like the one they had back in their hometown, only larger and more…Tokyo-ish? They were too immersed in ogling at the stores and the van almost swerved if Shingo didn't grab a hold of the steering wheel.

"Sorry," he apologized as they slowed down as they hit the red light once again "I'm also a tourist here."

The girls looked shocked at this "but you have a car?" yes Yui, like that answered the question, Mio's sarcastic mind said to her. The clerk only gave a nod as he stepped on the gas once again, bringing the car into a comfortable pace as it hit larger roads now that they've left the busier part of Tokyo.

"I bought this car so I could drive myself around whenever I come to visit my sister," he explained, glancing at the backseat from the rear view mirror "I'm from Osaka, but my older sister worked and lived here, so I thought why not buy a car and leave it here so my sister can use it to go to work and I can use it whenever I come by? And here we are with this Volkswagen, though I don't come by that much, only on holidays." He added to some questioning looks.

"What a nice little brother," Mugi teased with that tilt in her voice that would never fail to make anyone blush, Mio was one of the unfortunate ones to be at the other end of the teasing remark. As on cue, Shingo blushed and the girls giggled at the sight. With a smile, the raven haired girl turned to the window on her left, watching silently as they drove further and further away from Ginza, her mind once more wandered off thanks to fatigue and lack of sleep.

It was a simple, random thing, really. A mention of 'little brother' and wham!, her mind returned to _her. _Three guesses who.

Mio was in Tokyo, the city that held that one place she really wanted to go and visit with that person. The one place where they had been aiming for since years ago. It's a bit saddening that she finally came here, it was without Ritsu. Her eyes glazed over as she caught a blur of greenish-grey along the road, her fingers played with her short locks idly out of boredom.

Perhaps Azusa sensed the melancholic mood coming out in waves from her senpai on the passenger seat, or perhaps not. The pigtailed girl elbowed her brown haired senpai to get her attention, who pouted in retaliation yet leaned in once her junior looked like she wanted to say something private. After getting the attention she wanted, Azusa whispered a few words, loud enough to reach Mugi who joined them in interest.

After the youngest of the group stopped talking, Yui's face beamed enough to rival neon lights in the middle of the night and the blonde let out an excited 'ah!' and nodded excitedly in agreement.

"Shin-chan," the brown haired guitarist called out, earning Mio's attention as well since she broke a tranquil silence "before we call it a day, we have just one more place to visit."

The note of confidence Yui had in her words interested Shingo, who grinned back as he accelerated "where to, ladies?"

(_ _)

The month of March indicated spring, and with spring blooms the Sakura. The vivid contrast of pink amongst lush green of the leaves and the grey that dominated the building's surrounding was beautiful. The sight took Mio's breath away as she basked in the glory of a very cool evening and the blossoming flowers, momentarily forgetting of her woes.

The car finally stopped in an empty lot and the people inside it piled out, with awestruck looks on their faces. Even Shingo, their tour guide for this trip, looked overwhelmed with the sight. The Houkago Teatime girls, Mio stole a glance at them as they stood gaping in front of the building, were all speechless.

It came as a confusing request from Yui, who asked Shingo to drive them to 2-3 Kitanomarukōen, Chiyoda, before they call it a day. The bassist had frowned at the strange request, though the address seemed to ring a bell in her head. The music studio clerk was frowning as well, but as he saw Mugi brandishing a blue-yellow flyer like a flag on the rear view mirror, understanding dawned upon him. Mio still frowned since she missed the kanji on the front of the flyer before the blonde had put it back inside her purse with a cheeky grin.

Eyes lighting up, Shingo told his guests to brace themselves as he made a u turn and headed to that one particular place.

And here they were, fifteen minutes later, standing with slack jaws as they looked up at the majestic building of the Nippon Budoukan, lost in thoughts. Yes, Budoukan, the very place of their dreams.

Seeing the place from up close made the hair on the back of Mio's neck stood up in anticipation. Ever since she had known about music, she always wondered what it would felt like to stand before a stadium, with an adrenaline rush, preparing for a night of concert. Watching concert DVDs more than once do that to you.

Sure, she might not be here for a concert tonight, but just seeing with her own two eyes, the actual place that held record-breaking concerts and was visited by famous people ever since she was even born…that was enough to get her pumped up. She felt a strange rush of determination washed over her, a feeling that made her feel like she had to do something… a feeling that she had not felt in quite a while.

She raised one shaking, sweaty palm at the direction of the stadium and closed it into a tight fist.

"Ne, Ritsu?"Her quiet voice traveled through the evening air, loud enough to reach for her ears only "I'm in front of Budoukan right now, I'm facing the destination of our dream. Our precious dream," a pause as she gathered her breath, and Mio tried not to think that she looked stupid for talking to empty air "and you know what? I wanted to make that dream a reality, just like what you-no, we, had always wanted. I don't want to let it die, forgotten."

The hand lowered and fell into place by her side.

"Ritsu…what would you say if you were here?"Grey eyes closed as memories washed over her. Instead of the upsetting, depressing memories, a faint smile appeared on the fair visage of the bassist as something else came to her mind. Probably the first true smile she had in a while

Not all memories were bad, and the one she was remembering right now one was one of them.

'_You're right' _the bassist thought with a smile _'we won't let that dream die! We'll get this damn stadium to sell our tickets and play our music to our hearts' content if it's the last thing we do!' _ Mio could even hear Ritsu's familiar booming, confident laugh, rang in her head as those words passed her mind.

Suddenly, the cold night air wasn't so cold anymore. Her heart felt lighter than she ever remembered and the raven haired girl felt like a huge burden had been taken off of her shoulders. Too long have she immersed herself in sorrow following of her best friend's disappearance. She had lost sight of the dream the two of them had since childhood, the dream that kept them together throughout the years.

Mio understood, that even though Ritsu wasn't physically with her, the brunette will always be with her in heart and spirit. Their love of music will keep them connected, and no matter where the drummer was, as long as she still has the dream to reach Budoukan, Mio knew that their paths will cross once again someday. Maybe tomorrow, next week, 3 years from now…but definitely, they will meet again.

That's why she had to raise her head up high, and keep on practicing. Houkago Teatime had to be ready for their drummer's return, and time flies by quickly right?

Noticing that her friends were waving at her by their ride as a sign to go, Mio gave a nod before giving the Budoukan one last glance.

A grateful smile and the girl walked away. Not for the last time, no.

This trip was starting to look up, after all.

She'll come by again. Definitely.

* * *

**A/N:** This story is taking a turn to somewhere I did not expect. I have never been to Tokyo before, so forgive me if I made a mistake in the locations.

An emotional scene at the end if I don't butcher it. I always felt like that before sport matches. Augh. As usual favs and alerts are appreciated. But reviews will keep me going. Take care!


	6. Chapter 6

**Us From Now On**

**Chapter 6**

* * *

Summary: Why is it that we realize the importance of someone after they are gone? For it is hypocrisy and the human nature that blinds us to what matters the most.

Disclaimer is on page one.

* * *

"_Don't ever wipe your tears away if you still want to cry."_

* * *

"_Tokyo?"_

"_Yep. I found a bigger place there, and I've got a sponsor as well."_

"_Heh."_

"_What's so funny?"_

"_Well…strangely, that's where my future's headed as well. Odd huh?"_

"_A bit. You're welcome at my place anytime though, don't worry."_

"_I'll hold you to that."_

"_But, won't you be sad leaving your friends behind?"_

"_Partings are always sad…but honestly, it's much better this way."_

* * *

It started like the usual bedtime rituals, she stretched and get in some voice practice before plopping herself in bed with her headphones covering her ears. This happened all the time to help her reduce the stress she had gained over the 2 years; the soothing music was mostly to help lull her to sleep. Somehow, Mio felt she needed the music for tonight.

Bleak darkness met her unconscious and even though she was asleep, the raven haired bassist knew at the back of her mind that this was not something she wanted to see during her sleep.

She was alone, running desperately on a narrow damp tunnel, hand stretched in front of her as though reaching out into something, or some_one. _She wanted to shout out to anyone, to get her out of this suffocating place. Her lips opened, but nothing came out from her throat, not even a croak. Pale, trembling hands went blindly to her throat, trying to figure out why her voice wouldn't come out.

"_Mio."_

A familiar voice broke her out of her fear. Her ears strained to hear where the painfully familiar voice came from.

And why did it sound so sad?

Her feet started moving, towards where she didn't know. All she knew was that she wanted to go where that voice came from. To seek out the one who had called out her name.

A bright spot of light appear in front of her, breaking through the pitch black blanket of darkness that had surrounded her since forever. Her steps quickened, her pulse raced. The light was getting closer...her left hand reached out…

Bright light blinded her sight as torrents of voices flooded her hearing. A pair of grey irises opened and recoiled upon seeing that she was literally buried, between the mass bodies of people trying to cross the busy intersection. She was right in the middle, standing rooted on the ground, while the faceless people around her moved in a motion-like blur.

Where was she? The girl found herself thinking as she got caught between the flows and walked towards the other side of the road. Her eyes strayed to look for any familiarity, which was proved to be futile. There was nothing familiar about this place; the road which she was standing on, the reddish buildings and even the slightly grey sky looked different to what she was used to.

The wind blew particularly hard at that moment, and the girl had to fight down the usual annoyance of having her long hair getting in her eyes- long hair?

Fingers trailed up the long strands of raven-black hair in a merge of shock and disbelief.

'_This hair…' _she had cut her hair short 2 years ago! _'How could it - how did it-!_'Her mind tickled at the strange occurrence, her fingers stopped moving along the long strands. How could something like this happen? She knows full well that she had cut her hair short; it was her own hands that did it! The memory of cold surface of the metal scissor was still fresh on her left hand.

As though breaking her from the thought, her feet moved suddenly. Walking a few paces, before breaking into a full run. She ran and ran without needing to take a breather. Her feet seemed to know her next destination as the raven haired girl went by more reddish buildings that all looked the same before her eyes.

Suddenly she stopped, feet rooted to the ground as her eyes took the view in front of her. It was a 2 storied building, slightly worn out and it stuck out like a sore thumb in between the rows of well-kept buildings. A lop sided sign hung above the only door, its green neon flickered lightly. The windows were cracked and blurry, as though they haven't been cleaned in years.

Shadows of people could be seen through the glass, but what they were doing she didn't know. The raven haired girl couldn't move her eyes from the building, staring from across the road and ignoring the busy people rushing around her. This building captivated her, as though she knew what was coming.

A creak came from the worn-out wooden door, loud enough to reach the girl's ears. Grey eyes stayed unmoving as 2 figures went out the door. A tall woman with a short jet black hair stepped outside; accompanied by a young, familiar looking brunette with that yellow headband she wouldn't be able to miss. She knew by heart who the latter was.

"_Ritsu."_

The two female talked in a voice too soft to be heard from where Mio was standing. She tried to call out to her best friend, but her voice won't come out. Her body stood rooted to the ground, and she was unable to move any of her limbs.

"_Ritsu!"_

Her heart called out to her, desperately wanting the brunette to turn around. To see her, to acknowledge her, to let her know that she was wanted in _her _world.

Her heart ache as the black haired woman's hand went to the brunette's face intimately. It was like an action the two of them were used to. Their faces inched closer, and Mio's heart felt like breaking.

A sudden weight appeared on her right shoulder, and her eyes flickered to see the familiar form of her bass. Her left hand was weighted down by a familiar blue bag. These two objects only adding the weights upon her, as though not wanting her to cross the street and disrupting the moment.

Not caring one bit, her eyes returned to the two women across the road.

Grey orbs widened.

_No._

_No!_

_**NO!**_

"MIO-CHAN!"

Metallic grey eyes snapped opened at the call, its owner instinctively sat up only to recoiled back down moments later as she felt her forehead collided against a solid object. Seeing stars, the bassist tumbled out of bed and fell to the floor with a loud smack, hands began rubbing at the bruise she knew was forming. A loud thud following her fall informed her that the white pricey headphone she cherished had fallen off as well.

"Yui!" Mio looked through teary eyes to see a brunette crouching on her bed, babying a sore forehead "what was that for?"she could feel her heart rate beginning to slow down now that she had known her attacker.

"I was trying to wake you up!" the guitarist whined, hands still rubbing furiously "Mio-chan seems to be having a bad dream and you were trashing around in your sleep, mou!"

The raven haired bassist stopped her hand motion "…trashing?"

"Un. You were trashing around for about 5 minutes before I could wake you up," innocent brown eyes peered worriedly at her friend "that was one nightmare, Mio-chan. Are you alright?"

Mio buried her face on her palms, her breath came out in gasps. Flashes of her dream resurfaced uncomfortably,making it hard to reply.

"I'm fine." A white lie.

Yui tilted her head at the vague answer, but didn't have time to ponder on it. Rapid footsteps came towards them before the thick wooden door of the room opened with a slam revealing Azusa and Mugi who looked ragged as though they've been running from across the huge mansion.

"What's wrong?" the rhythmic guitarist –now pigtail free- collapsed on the bed, beside Yui, wondering eyes directed at the latter and the bassist who was still seated on the floor "We heard screaming-"

Mugi sat down on her knees in front Mio and laid a hand on the bassist's raven head, ignoring the other two's conversation about how Yui had to yell to jerk Mio back from a nightmare.

"You okay?" she pet the head in an act of comfort.

Grey eyes peeked out through the fingers on her face and met a pair of concerned blue before giving a short nod.

"I'm fine. Just… a bad dream, that's all."

Mugi didn't look like she was going to buy Mio's fib this time, she frowned and opened her mouth, but a call from Yui made her turn away from the bassist distractedly. That was enough time for Mio. Hands quickly rubbed away the tears that slipped her closed eyelids as subtly as possible, holding in a sob that threatened to break. Unfortunately, this action was not missed by a pair of concerned blue eyes.

Mugi wished Mio would tell her the truth.

In which she would tell her _the _truth in return.

* * *

After this morning's rude awakening, Mio had a feeling that today was going to be very difficult. Thanks to that dream she had, she was distracted throughout the whole trip. Her mind kept wandering off and the others would catch her staring at nothing particular with a dazed look on her face. Shingo, as a good tour guide, was a bit concerned and after listening to Yui's suggestion, he brought them to a lefty fair at the Yamaha Music Store. Even that didn't manage to cheer the bassist up, even though she still browsed around the store like a possessed woman.

Metallic grey eyes focused on a left-handed Fender Bass with an unnecessary intensity. Her eyes could bore a hole on the poor instrument, and even the store clerk looked a bit worried as he paced behind her.

'_That day, the school had finished an hour earlier. There was no club thanks to graduation.'_

Eyebrows furrowed even deeper as she moved away towards the drum section, fingers trailing over a shiny golden cymbal. Her heart was heavy, with what she didn't know. The glow she had in her heart after seeing the Budoukan last night was gone without a trace. All that was left was an overwhelming feeling of loss.

'_Ritsu disappeared immediately after the end of school bell rang and I couldn't reach her by phone.'_

Sets of plastic-covered drumsticks hung upon the wall behind the drum sets, some even autographed by famous musicians Mio's childhood friend would fawn over if she was here.

'_Nodoka said she was called over to the teacher's lounge after school and I went there to get her.'_

A large Intocabille poster, along with the Hell Fest posters, were stuck on the wall behind this month's 50-percent-off sale of second hand instruments and Mio found her eyes strayed over to it in a daze. The words on them registered in her mind, yet she didn't really pay much attention to it, preferring to drown in her own train of thoughts.

'_Sawako-sensei said she'd left immediately after seeing her and told me Ritsu looked very preoccupied.'_

Pale hands took one of the leaflets available on a nearby shelf, its vivid red-blood color took her attention and it didn't even occurred to the girl that she _hated _blood and all that resembled it.

'_I decided to head home by myself afterwards.'_

The leaflet was folded 4 times and was fiddled with as she moved towards the magazine shelves by the doorway, eyes straying unconsciously as her mind worked even harder to remember the events afterwards. It's hard to think when a stream of people walked by past you endlessly.

To be honest, Mio didn't really remember that day all that clearly. She remembered taking a detour on the way home to get something for her mother then doubled back when she saw a familiar figure across the street, pacing by the downtown area.

The downtown area was heavily avoided by people in general during daylight and thus was pretty much deserted before sunset. That was why it came as a shock to her to see someone clearly underage to be sneaking around the area during daylight, someone she knew very well no less!

Mio had followed Ritsu a couple of blocks deeper, but remember losing her on an intersection when the crossing light turns red before Mio had the chance to cross the street. She saw Ritsu went into a suspicious looking alley and when the light turned green the bassist had rushed over only to find the alley deserted. She remembered feeling very frustrated then, and had dialed Ritsu's number repeatedly to which only reached her voicemail.

The bassist remembered nothing afterwards, except for the hurt she felt from her best friend ignoring her. After that day, it became harder to get together with Ritsu after school.

She was reminded once more of her dream and felt a jumble of emotion rushed through her when a particular scene came into her mind; the one between Ritsu and…that older woman.

Was that reality? No…she didn't remember seeing anyone with Ritsu that day.

Then, was it a fragment of her dream? Made up from years of pent up confusion, shock, hurt and …a wry smile came on her face that was obscured by a palm she ran over it in frustration. No…she wouldn't go that far.

_Yet._

Picking up a music magazine and flipping through it idly, Mio wondered why she had forgotten about this particular memory and why did it resurfaced now of all times. Was it because she was too overwhelmed with graduation then? Or was it because she had a short attention span and quickly forgotten about it the next day?

The last one seemed impossible since she _knew_ she wasn't that type of person.

Maybe it's because of how good Ritsu looked that day, she mused to herself with a small smile. To be honest, Ritsu looked different than usual that day; she looked very…mature, for a lack of a better word. She had taken off her yellow headband, letting her very long bangs covered her face. The black attires she wore were also different than her usual bright colored clothes and it shed the childhood image her best friend was known for, especially the jacket. The _leather _jacket that Ritsu wore had an orange tribal tiger-like design on the back and Mio remembered wondering about where Ritsu got her leather jacket from.

She found herself letting out a small smile, head shaking slightly at how quickly her mood changed. Was it her time of the month already? One moment she was down and depressed, and the next moment she was acting like a giddy school girl.

'_This is stupid. But I couldn't help it,' _the bassist put down the magazine she's been flipping through the last several minutes back in its shelf, eyes straying over at the sidewalk through the glass door of the shop _'she looked really good with those clothes on._

'_Like that person just now-'_

Her thoughts ceased into a halt immediately as a figure went past her.

Wearing the same _leather jacket._

With the same _design_.

A _brunette _someone.

Mio only stood there in silence to process all this , before her reflex took control.

She bolted.

* * *

"Eh? This one's no good?"

"Senpai! We had the same store back in Osaka! We didn't come all the way to Tokyo to buy something like this-"

"Ufufu, I think it's different Azusa-chan. You might not find the same thing back in Osaka after all."

"Are you serious? You already have a _Gibson_ _Les Paul._"

"Oh, yeah."

"_Thank you_, Shingo-san."

"Aww."

The overly pink and flowery Fender Telecaster guitar was returned to its shelf by a dejected looking Yui. The brunette had been putting up a not-so-smart argument for 5 minutes about buying the guitar as a souvenir, backed up by a certain blonde, before shot down by the combination of an incredulous Azusa and Shingo.

Mugi looked down at her watch as she felt her stomach rumbled uncomfortably "it's nearly 8," she informed the others, realizing that they've been wasting more than 3 hours on this shop alone "want to get something to eat?"

Yui nodded vigorously as she pumped her arms "dinner! Then we go see Shibuya at night!"

"That's good, I was planning to take you guys ther-"

"SENPAI!" Azusa's screech halted the tall man's words and all turned towards the petite girl who was running after their raven haired bassist's back, who had bolted out of the shop as though hell was on her heel. The store's glass door slammed hard after the two and without looking at each other, the 3 went after them, shouldering past people and treading on wayward feet.

Her breath a misty white against the chilly spring wind as she ran. It's already late March, but it's still very cold in Tokyo. The bassist's mind was focused solely on catching up to a far figure between the crowds that had the same posture as someone she know.

The same back she had been chasing after since 2 years ago.

The figure lagged behind as it crossed a busy street, the thin leather jacket contrasts painfully against the thick coats surrounding it, its vivid orange design on the back reflecting the artificial lights of the street lamps. Mio picked up her pace, her breaths coming up in short and painful pants.

A hand stretched out on its own accord as the figure walked further away and her pace faltered as she drowned in the sea of people coming from the other side of the road.

_Ritsu!_

"_Senpai!"_

A frantic cry reached her ears and all Mio saw was a black Chevy Blazer rushing towards her from the left.

Her mind went blank.

* * *

**A/N:** Sorry for the lack of update. A paper gave me a killer migraine for days and I couldn't write anything. I'm stressed and frustrated, but glad that I can get this one up. I'm still making up my mind on the scene breaks, sorry.

Anyway, please read and review. Reviews really do my heart good.


	7. Chapter 7

**Us From Now On**

Chapter 7.

* * *

Summary: Why is it that we realize the importance of someone after they are gone? For it is hypocrisy and the human nature that blinds us to what matters the most.

Disclaimer is on page one.

* * *

"_My heart longs for you, my soul dies for you, my eyes cry for you, my empty arms reach out for you."_

* * *

If she had to choose, out of all the people in the light music club, Azusa was closest to Yui. Other than her, Azusa would have to say that the next person she's closest to is the club's bassist, Mio. Maybe it's because Azusa looked up to her like an older sister that she never had, or maybe because she was the only sane person in the whole club. Either way, all Azusa knew was that she was close to raven haired bassist.

Close enough to notice something that was unseen to the others' eyes.

It was common knowledge to all that Mio and Ritsu often acts like newlyweds. With all the bickering, teasing, mock fights between the two that would last for half an hour at least, it was hard not to notice how close they were to each other. The two of them always amused Azusa to no end with their chemistry and made her envious enough to wish that she had a person she could tease or have mock fights with.

With them, it's hard to see one without the other.

Like two parts of a whole.

Thus was why the guitarist was more than confused to see her Mio-senpai arriving at school during one spring morning, looking severely distraught and without the drummer by her side. It somehow rang an alarm inside Azusa, as she remembered the events during her second year when a fight had taken place between the two childhood friends.

_Were they fighting with each other again?_

No, Mio-senpai and Ritsu-senpai weren't fighting.

But there were a certain tension between the two that was just not normal.

It's like they were trying to act as friendly as they could with each other,

Yet a certain line seemed to be drawn between them.

They were close,

But there were always a certain distance in-between.

A distance that was never there before.

Azusa couldn't help but panic when she realized this, yet she couldn't say anything. This wasn't her problem, and if either of the two didn't say anything about it, she didn't have the right to butt in and ask.

Her answer came to her in a phone call, 4 days after her senpai's graduation ceremony.

"_Azu-nyan! Ricchan left!"_

Ritsu-senpai had left.

She'd moved away without telling anyone, not even Mio, who was the closest person to her.

The small guitarist rushed towards a certain bassist's house, where she was led towards a room by a concerned-looking mother. Azusa could only hold in her tears at the broken figure of her senpai, sobbing uncontrollably in Mugi-senpai and Yui's senpai's embrace.

Mio-senpai was weakly mumbling _'I'm sorry," _over and over like a broken record with a voice that was raw and hoarse from crying.

Two hands with whitening knuckles clutched tightly on the keyboardist and the brunette guitarist's shirts as though they were her last lifeline. Azusa didn't need to think twice before joining the group hug, offering even the smallest of comfort to soothe the hysterical bassist.

Ritsu-senpai's departure had destroyed the foundation of the band and affected the band's moral as well. Mio-senpai had never really told the others what had made her cry that badly at the news of Ritsu-senpai's departure or what she was apologizing for that day. She would only shake her head and gave a smile that never reached her eyes.

Ever since then, the other 3 had made an unspoken promise to keep their eyes on their fragile bassist. To lift up her spirits and to help her move on. It took a while, but they had managed to slowly, but surely, helped Mio get back on her feet.

Though years had passed since Mio-senpai's last breakdown, Azusa had never stopped watching over her.

And she was glad for that.

Her feet moved purely on reflex at the moment her eyes caught sight of a certain bassist, bolting out of the Yamaha music store that day.

A yell escaped her lips.

"_SENPAI!"_

A call that was drowned by the crowd as Azusa fell in step behind Mio, who was chasing after something.

Or someone.

Hazel eyes could only widen at the sight of the bassist, rushing head first into the traffic.

Her blood ran cold when she realized that she was too far to do anything about it.

There was only one thing to do.

Azusa screamed.

* * *

A hand stretched out on its own accord as the figure walked further and her pace faltered, drowned in the sea of people coming from the other side of the road.

_No!_

_Ritsu!_

"_Senpai!"_

A frantic cry reached her ears and all Mio saw was a black Chevy Blazer rushing towards her from the left.

Her mind went blank.

Suddenly, a huge yank on the back of her jacket came from out of nowhere, jerking her backwards onto a figure that had pulled her hard towards the safety of the sidewalk. The cars rushed by with the Chevy Blazer honking at her angrily as it went. Mio felt herself stumbled onto a heap on the hard concrete under the incredulous stares of the passerby's.

Panting and her adrenaline still running high, the bassist looked behind her to see her savior, only to stare when she saw a flushed short haired woman clutching onto her jacket with shaking hands and a pale face.

She had not expected a stranger to save her behind.

"Are you okay?" the older woman asked worriedly as she helped Mio up on her feet. Mio found herself nodding, though she was having a bit of a difficulty of standing on her shaky feet. The event that had happened rushed through her mind like a re-winded tape and a numbing horror shot through Mio's system at the realization that she almost became a road kill if it's not for this newcomer here.

Shuddering, Mio scrambled to reply "I'm fine. Um, thanks for pulling me back," Mio answered quietly, not liking the eyes of the passerby on her "I-um, I didn't see the light was red."

"Don't worry, that happens a lot around here."

"Eh?" Mio looked up to see the woman having a knowing smirk on her face "you mean you do that all the time?" For some strange reason…that face looked familiar. Her staring seemed to be noticed by her companion who then let out a small chuckle that made the shy girl apologized immediately.

"Oh no, I mean, there are a lot of people who did what you did because they had something on their mind and weren't paying attention to their surroundings. You better be careful next time, Ojou-chan, because I might not be around to watch your back." The words were sharp but the expression on the woman's face was gentle and Mio couldn't help but felt a rush of gratitude towards this person.

She opened her mouth to thank the stranger once again but was cut off by a hard tackle to her side. The force made the bassist stumble several steps backwards, and obsidian eyes looked down to see the shaking, lithe figure of her kouhai.

"A-Azusa?"

"Mio-senpai, you idiot!"

The bassist had to flinch visibly at the force of the words that escaped her junior's mouth. Azusa seldom raised her voice at anyone, with the exception of Yui. Then…does this mean that Azusa saw-?

Judging from how she trembled, she probably did. A rush of guilt entered Mio, clearing her mind immediately of what had transpired before.

"Sorry, Azusa. I- I wasn't thinking straight."

The small guitarist just nods her head wordlessly, making no indication she's going to let go of the bassist anytime soon.

Out of the corner of her eyes, Mio saw the woman who had saved her gave an amused smile at the exchange. Only then did she realize that she hadn't thanked her for saving her life yet.

"I'm sorry! Thank you for saving me!" Mio gave a slightly awkward bow, finding it's hard to bend forward when you have someone stuck on to you like a leech. But Azusa didn't seem like she would let go of her anytime soon.

The older woman who saved her just smiled at the adorable girls and shook her head "You're very welcome. I'll excuse myself then, good day to you." She gave a nod at Mio and Azusa before leaving just as quickly as she had arrived. Azusa kept her eyes on the woman until she left, before turning to her senpai.

"Mio-senpai!" she yelled again, making the bassist wince.

Mio knew when she'd crossed the line "I'm sorry! I- I wasn't thinking straight…and-"

The image of the person wearing the leather jacket with the tribal Tiger-design flashed through her mind again. And even though Mio was dead curious about it, it wasn't the right time to tell Azusa, or anyone else, about this.

She only sighed and pat Azusa's head "Sorry…it won't happen again."

There would be explanation…just, not now.

Not long after that, the others arrived. And after being told of what happened earlier, Azusa insist that it's for the best, Mio was scolded by Mugi and Yui (that took her off guard) and Shingo actually wanted to drive them home, thinking that Mio might be tired for her to space off like earlier.

But the bassist was stubborn, she won't put a damper on today's trip and after a small argument, the others relented and they continue the trip. Well, not trip. They only went to dinner and looked around some more before leaving for home. And even though Shingo was being a great tour guide, Mio was just…too distracted to enjoy the trip afterwards.

That woman….where have she seen her before…?

* * *

The short haired brunette yawned, as fingers moved expertly across the phone's keyboard, typing up a quick text message.

"Can't come…" that person muttered "had a plan…enjoy being a tour guide." And with that, the fingers flipped shut the phone and that person let out a bored sigh.

"Is that alright?" came a voice "Shingo came from Osaka and wants you to meet his band…ditching him for me wouldn't be good, don't you think?"

The shaggy haired brunette only grinned and turned to the voice, whose owner was a voluptuous woman clad only in a towel, dripping wet to indicate that she was just done taking a shower.

A hand waved the statement away "ah- it's alright. He'd understand…and 'sides, he's going to be here a while, I can meet him later…and _you, _I'd ditch anyone for you, anytime." The last part was added in a flirt, with twin eyebrows wagging suggestively.

The woman let out a laugh at that and sashayed her way to the figure sitting down on the couch.

"Ne ne," she said before plopping herself across the figure's lap "something interesting happened to me earlier."

"Hmm? What happened?"

"…I saved someone from an impending accident."

The hand that was stroking a smooth thigh stopped "…say what?"

A small chuckle "I said, I was being a good Samaritan…doesn't that deserve a present…?"

A slow grin came onto the brunette's face as fingers pried the towel off the body "well…I don't know…but I have something else in mind…"

Slowly their faces inched closer…and before their lips met, one word was uttered out by the woman.

"…_Ritsu_…"

* * *

A/N: Um…hello? Okay, first off, I'm very sorry for the late update! Things happened and this chapter was actually halfway finished since…25th of November. The next update will be up soon enough since I'm typing up the next chapter as I speak.

Questions, cursings (since this is unbeta'ed. Haven't emailed my beta yet =w=) and reviews will be appreciated and thanks for reading. See you guys around.


	8. Chapter 8

**Us From Now On**

Chapter 8.

* * *

**Summary:** Why is it that we realize the importance of someone after they are gone? For it is hypocrisy and the human nature that blinds us to what matters the most.

Disclaimer is on page one. Also, the songs included in this chapter do not belong to me.

* * *

"_Distance never separates two hearts that really care."_

* * *

For Mio, the hardest part about making music or to be specific, making new songs was not the composing of the melody. To be very honest, everyone in her band has the awesome ability of coming up with good melodies from the simplest things, like how Mugi come up with an entire melody for 'Honey Sweet Tea Time' from random notes played on the keyboard and Yui coming up with the melody for 'Gohan wa Okazu' just by strumming Gitaah during one particularly boring practice session.

No, for melody making, it's safe to say that they're all good.

The hardest part for her was writing the lyrics.

It was to everyone's knowledge that Mio writes overly sweet and fluffy lyrics. True, her sense of 'beautiful writing' was kind of a wack, but it's not that she's bad with writing as a whole. It's just that she always have difficulties in finding words that matches her thoughts when she's listening to the melodies. A part of her wanted things to rhyme, the other wants to put in things that sounded meaningful…and when she's overly inspired she tended to put everything together and ended up with what everyone (mostly Ritsu and Sawa-chan) thinks as the world's sappy-est lyrics.

She's hurt of course by those comments, but that didn't get her down. She still tries her best to come up with lyrics whenever they have new songs because she wants to get better at it. The bassist wants to be able to write good enough lyrics that will support the beautiful melodies her friends come up with.

She's not there yet at the moment, but she's trying.

Sometimes, random bursts of inspiration triggered by real life events helped a lot when writing lyrics, and one of the proofs of this statement was right here, currently playing in her ears.

As always, insomnia hits whenever Mio's feeling slightly stressful. Today was just one of those days thanks to the crazy stunt she pulled earlier, what with her jumping to cross the street when the light was red and all that. She couldn't stop feeling guilty for worrying her friends about it, with Azusa the most out of all, and felt bad about ruining the rest of the day with her overall mood. Promising herself to think before she acts starting tomorrow, Mio decided to spend the night awake.

No, she's not brooding no.

Not tonight.

Tonight, she's dedicating herself to music.

Tomorrow was finally the start of Hell Fest, their very aim for coming to Tokyo in the first place. She had done some looking around when they were out earlier (and thankfully grabbed a couple of leaflets before that crazy stunt) and after browsing through said interesting leaflets, she'd noticed couple of familiar band names in the Hell Fest band list. All of them are indie bands, but some had released several mini albums and had their songs played on the radio. Mio was happy to realize that she knew some of these bands' songs, though not that many, and was actually looking forward to tomorrow's concert.

This was just like the Summer Fest years ago, which was their first time attending open-air live concert.

Back then Mio was so hyped the night before that she couldn't sleep due to excitement and ended up listening to music the whole night. She practically ran on pure adrenaline rush the next day and dragged Ritsu practically everywhere throughout the day.

A small smile appeared on her lips at the memory.

She remembered how Ritsu was exasperated at her antiques, but still went along with her excitement throughout the entire day. The brunette was good at that, taking care of her when one of her weird moods strikes. She may act like a jerk sometimes, but Mio knew too well that the drummer can be very understanding. That day in the Summer Fest was the proof. Only a good friend would let herself be dragged around during a hot summer day to watch for barely three minutes worth of concert before having to run around again.

And though Ritsu was not here with her this time to share this excitement with; Mio wouldn't let herself to feel down. Not when there was music to look forward to. Music was their passion, and the bassist hope that her childhood friend won't abandon that no matter where she was.

And so, with a smile on her face, Mio scrolled through the lists of albums in her ipod and clicked on the folder titled 'HTT'. More scrolling before she found the song she was looking for, and with a happy hum she covered her ears with her earphones to once again drown herself in music.

_On a day just like any other,  
you suddenly stood up and said,  
"Let's go stargazing tonight!"_

"_I guess even you get a good idea sometimes,"  
everyone said as they laughed.  
On a road not even lit;  
We frolicked about as we walked like fools  
To avoid being crushed  
by the loneliness and uneasiness we carried._

_As we gazed up from this pitch-black world,  
the stars looked like they were falling from the night sky._

This song she's listening to wasn't just any song. It was their song, HTT's song. This was the first song they come up with after the recovery from the brief slump caused by Ritsu's departure. Yes, their muse took a hit during the months following the event, and whenever they tried to make music, everything sounds half hearted. But thanks to a long bout of persevering, and sheer stubbornness on Azusa's part, they had managed to come up with some good songs that they feel very proud of. And this particular song was one of them.

_Since when, I wonder,  
have I been chasing after you?  
Please, please  
don't be startled and listen  
to these feelings of mine._

_"That's Deneb, Altair, and Vega,"_  
_you say as you point at the Summer Triangle._  
_I remember as I look at the sky._  
_I finally found Orihime-sama,_  
_but where is Hikoboshi-sama?_  
_She's going to be all alone._

It was a song that mainly plays on Mugi's amazing piano skills as the strength. Truth be told, this song was a big gamble on their part. With them losing their drummer, the band had to compromise with the built-in drum beats found in the blonde's keyboard to fill in the drum parts.

Of course, synthesized drum beats would never be as good as real ones, and to make up for that they had composed this particular piece that relied fully on the base for the beats. The Ojou-sama's remarkable talents in the piano were emphasized in this song, and Mio felt a surge of pride towards her friend whenever she listens to it. Sure, Mio was the one who came up with the overall melody, but without the Ojou-sama, this song wouldn't pack as much punch as it does now.

Of course, the melody wasn't the only thing that _makes _the song.

There's the lyric to pay attention to.

_The truth is, I've always  
known somewhere inside, my feelings for you.  
But just finding them  
won't make them reach you.  
Don't. Don't cry  
is what I told myself._

_I pretend to be strong but am cowardly_  
_I pretended not to care._  
_And yet,_  
_the stabbing pain in my heart increases,_  
_Ah, I see, so that's what it means_  
_to fall in love._

This particular song's lyric's credits would fall entirely to Azusa. The youngest member of their band had turned up during practice one day, with a handful of ripped notebook pages and heavy eye bags. She had told her senpais how she'd tried her best to come up with the lyric draft for this particular melody, before turning to Mio and apologized. The bassist was confused at first, but then she understood when she read the lyric draft.

The draft her junior had written was about a girl with an unrequited love who was never able to convey her feelings to the person she loved. And to be very honest, it hid pretty close to home for Mio, who at the moment was nursing a broken heart (or so Mugi had said) after Ritsu. Azusa did confess about using that particular event as an inspiration and though she knew that it wasn't the nicest thing to do, she couldn't help it. The pigtailed girl had wanted to convey all the emotions brought forth by the melody Mio came up with and turn it into the song. Thus was why she apologized. Although she had come up with a great lyric, she had used her senpai's suffering for it.

Mio only smiled at that and gave her junior a hug.

True, it made hear heart ache when she read the lyric, but she was not mad at Azusa for it. She was actually glad, that something positive came from all the negativity that they've been feeling. And so to unanimous votes, the four of them agreed on the choice of lyric (with several touch-ups) and titled this song 'Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari'.

_That summer day  
those twinkling stars  
I still remember even now.  
Your face when you laughed,  
your face when you were angry,  
I loved it so much.  
Isn't it funny?_

_Even though I always understood,  
you never knew  
my personal secret.  
The night rolls on  
In a distant memory, you  
point with your finger  
in an innocent voice._

Mio couldn't hold in the smile that threatened to split her face in half when she listened to Yui's voice belting out one of the high notes in this song. She remembered how their lead guitarist was having trouble during practice with this particular note because her voice usually cracks when she tried to sing it. They were thinking of changing the entire arrangement to suit Yui's voice, but the brunette flat out refused and stubbornly said that she'd get through this hurdle one way or the other. The other HTT members nearly wet themselves silly when Yui ended up calling Sawa-chan over to Osaka for some vocal training. That was a wacky weekend when they had their old homeroom teacher over for sure, but it was worth it. Thanks to her, Yui managed to tackle the high note and smoothly handle the other difficult parts of the song.

They all had big hope for this song and it was to everyone's surprise when this song became a hit when they played it during one of their campus events. People had come up to them asking if the song was available for purchase afterwards, and this triggered in their decision to upload their songs online. HTT has quite a few songs from their High School era and after a brief discussion, they all agreed on uploading each and every one of their songs for people to listen to.

It was an achievement for them as a band, and though they can't play most of their drum-heavy songs live anymore, they tried hard to make up for it with the rest of their songs. Mio was proud of her friends, and she's looking forward to the future where they could, hopefully, released mini albums and then albums and eventually hold a concert in Budoukan and fulfill their dream. It was still a long way to go, but the bassist knew that they'd get there eventually.

Mood greatly lifted thanks to all these positive thoughts, Mio set her ipod on repeat to loop all the songs in the HTT folder and spent the night awake in blissful abandon.

* * *

"…Those are amazing eye bags you have there, Mio-chan."

"She's like an office lady who had to pull an all-nighter to make it through a deadline."

"You mean a mangaka. Nothing beats the legendary eyebags of a mangaka."

"Ah…haha…ha… yeah…sure…" The raven haired bassist could only scratch her cheek awkwardly and looked out of the window.

Just like the Summer Fest, Mio had skipped on sleeping entirely the night before and when the morning came she was all tired and groggy because of the all-nighter. Honestly, the girl would never learn. She's like a kid who's too excited to go to sleep on the day before the field trip.

"What were you doing, senpai?" Azusa's voice was tinged with worry came from the back seat "Did you have trouble sleeping again?"

Mio, to her slight surprise, found herself smiling at this.

"No, actually, I didn't." She turned around to face the younger girl, who blinked at the bright expression on her face.

"I stayed up all night listening to our songs," she explained excitedly, holding up her iPod that was plugged into the car socket to charge after a night of use "I was excited about going to the Hell Fest today, I guess, and ended up listening to some music to cope. And then I lost track of time…" and the next thing she knew the sun was up and the new day had begun.

Azusa's mouth formed a perfect O when she replied "Oh." and found herself smiling in relief back in return.

Mio's cheerful mood was not lost on the others, who looked at each other elatedly. They had thought that Mio would be stuck brooding for the entire day again today, and was glad that she didn't. They had come to Tokyo to have fun, and they want the bassist most of all to enjoy their trip. It would do her good, they had thought.

And they were right.

The sunny expression on Mio's face was contagious, and before long the van broke into comfortable conversations filled with jokes and laughter.

They were on their way to the venue where Hell Fest will be taking place later. It was only around 10 am in the morning now, and the festival would not start until sundown, but Shingo had promised to take them out around the area while they wait for the festival to start. The girls were looking forward to visit Akihabara (not so much on Azusa and Mio's parts, but they can't go against the onslaught of unstoppable forces that were Mugi and Yui) and according to their tour guide, Akihabara was pretty close to where they were headed.

Unlike yesterday, where they headed towards the busy parts of Tokyo, this time they were heading to the outskirts area where old worn-out buildings dominate the place instead of multi-storied buildings Tokyo was famous for. It brought a different feel compared to the Tokyo they have seen so far and Mio found herself liking it. Half of her were expecting long lines of people waiting for Hell Fest to start, like how she had seen people doing during the Summer Fest, and was actually confused when nothing like that came to sight.

"You know," she started as the van turned away from the main road "with today being the first day of Hell Fest, I'd expect more people lining up around here." Not that she knew where it was going to be held, but you know, expectations run rampant when you're excited for something.

Shingo glanced at her as the girls in the back seat make noises of agreement "Ah, well, that's because it's still morning? Indie festivals like this usually get busy when it's close to opening time, since that's when the merch tables open. And besides, people usually flock around this part of town once its lights out, so there's that too."

A hum was his reply, since his guests were first timers to this kind of thing. Mugi was too busy taking pictures with her digital camera to even reply.

"Oooh!" Yui squealed out immediately afterwards "is that it? look, look!" she excitedly pointed out at a particular building. The building looked worn out, like most buildings around it, and was constructed with what looked like beautiful red bricks that reminded Mio of those cool night-club places in the west. The overall look the place has didn't feel like anything special, if not for the sign.

It has the biggest neon sign the bassist had laid her eyes on, and she would bet some of her money that it'll glow obnoxiously bright when night falls. Obviously, since it's still lights out, the sign was barely noticeable in midst of its surroundings, and yet the place still managed to get their attention.

Maybe it was because of the huge Hell-Fest posters plastered along the walls leading up to that building or maybe it was because of the flock of people outside of the entrance, who looked like they were setting up signs bearing band names and their set lists for the night. The fact that these people were wearing official looking Festival t-shirt helped too and it seemed this particular fact took Yui's attention.

"They were wearing Hell Fest t-shirts!" their lead guitarist pointed out as the van drove past the building's entrance "…uh, aren't we supposed to get off back there?" she turned to Shingo in confusion as they drove further away from said place.

"We're going to enter from the exclusive people entrance," Shingo replied with a grin that was unseen to the others "and we gotta park the van somewhere too, there's no parking over that area." Tokyo was a pain in the ass when it comes to parking spaces. They just had to walk practically everywhere here.

Mugi's eyes were still stuck on that red brick building even as the van drove away from it.

"That name…Serendipity wasn't it?" an English word, one she found familiar and yet couldn't quite remember the direct translation to it. Mio's ears perked up at that, remembering the word from one of the many English passages she'd read during class.

"If I remember correctly…it means 'happy accident'…right?"

Their driver nodded excitedly from his seat "Uh-huh."

"Or 'fortunate mistake'" Azusa added as she glanced back at said building that quickly disappeared from their sight "…what a positive-sounding name." she'd never guessed that it would be the very venue where a fierce-sounding event like Hell Fest would be taking place if she hadn't seen all the signs and posters outside of it.

"Ehhhh, you know quite a lot, Azunyan." Yui looked at her junior with wide eyed wonder "I didn't even know how to pronounce it, heheh!" she actually sounds happy about it and said junior could only sweat dropped at that.

"Please don't sound so proud about it." maybe she should help her senpai with her English lesson one of these days… Because who knows, if Yui-senpai become proficient enough in English (or at least can pronounce some things right) they can put more English words in their songs and be more creative with the lyrics! That would add more flavor into their songs and with more songs means more listeners and more listeners might open up a path for them towards stardom!

It was a good thing that Yui can't read minds, because the things Azusa was plotting in her head to get Yui to improve her English at this moment would've made her cry in despair.

"We're here~!" the van pulled over into a semi-empty public lot and lurched into a stop before everyone stepped outside. The public lot was hidden in between buildings, but from what Mio could see, it looked like they were just right behind the row where Serendipity's building was located. Still required some walking though, but this wasn't bad.

The Houkago Teatime girls followed their tour guide excitedly as he led them towards a set of heavy doors in the red-brick building, which had the 'Employees Only' plate on them, affectively explaining the 'exclusive people' entrance he was talking about before. Said doors led to what look like the kitchen area (where Shingo stopped for a bit and introduced the girls to the few people that were inside, most of them wearing the Hell Fest t-shirts) before they stepped into the main part of the building.

"Wow."

"It's a bar?!"

The inside of the worn out building of Serendipity completely contrasted the outside. The inside of the building was a bar, neatly decorated in a western style with music-related memorabilia decorating the place. There's actually an authentic-looking jukebox somewhere in the far corner and the girls could only stare around with their mouths slightly open.

The Hell Fest was going to be held _here? _In this posh-looking bar?

But where would the bands play? The tables and chairs were still arranged as if the place was not open to the public yet even though the bartenders were already working by the bar, wiping glasses and whatnots. With all the people working to set up the place, they'd expected the venue to look halfway ready to use by now.

The four girls turned to Shingo with confused looks to which the guy only grinned in return.

"Nu-uh, not yet." And with that he beckoned the girls to follow him towards a dingy looking hallway and walked right to the end where they reach a doorway leading to a stairs downstairs.

Ah. Now this makes sense.

"The one thing about Serendipity that sets it apart from the other bars," their tour guide explains as they descended the stairs towards the slightly colder basement "is the fact that they have an underground venue in the basement that is also their big selling point towards the musically inclined audience."

They reached the landing in no time and had to enter through another set of heavy-looking doors before they reach their destination.

The entire basement area of Serendipity had been turned into an underground music venue. The floor of the rectangle-shaped warehousy room was cemented, to contrast the upstairs area that has pretty tile flooring, and it was elevated at the far end where a large durable-looking stage was placed. A sturdy set of steel bars were placed right in front of the stage, giving a sense of separation between the floor and the stage area, though for what Mio has no idea. There were also a staggering number of amps and microphone stands placed near the stage for a concert held indoor. It must be because of the number of bands playing in the festival; they want and need different things. And placed on the right side of the stage was a humongous projection screen that was tacked to the wall, to which the lone projector in the room was pointed at. It's showing nothing but a slideshow of logos of the bands playing in tonight's concert at the moment, flashing faintly in the midst of the dimly lit room.

Mouth opening slightly, Mio's eyes then strayed around the other side of the room where she saw the many people working on the lightings, the sound systems and lingered briefly at the furthest side of the huge basement area where an open bar was placed. It was different compared to the one they have upstairs. Whereas above they have the regular chairs and tables nearby, the one in the basement had no seating whatsoever. There were several bar tables nearby however, indicating that people would spend their time standing up instead of sitting around in this place. There were also a noticeable lack of glass bottles downstairs as well, and that was probably to avoid damaged properties when things get too rowdy down there.

Even though the girls had visited an underground live house before (and even played in it) this place feels completely different to what they've come to know. There's a reason why a dang festival was held in here in the first place, and there was no doubt that they have to sign up for months before getting a slot to play in here.

The bassist gets goose bumps just by looking around, and the festival hasn't even started!

She might even faint when the event starts later on…better warn the others for it.

"Welcome," a new voice came from behind them "to Serendipity."

It didn't hit Mio until several seconds later that she had heard this voice and met this person once before.

"Ah!" the two of them gasped as their eyes met, both showing equal level of surprise.

* * *

Right outside in the semi-full parking lot, two figures were seen lugging a bunch of musical equipments off a worn out van. One of the figures, dressed in light clothes regardless of the cool weather, was having troubles with the amplifier she was lifting. Or at least, was trying to lift.

"Hot damn, these are heavy." The ponytailed-girl muttered in annoyance. She ended up dragging the damn thing off the floor of the van, gave a great big tug, and cringed when the heavy case fell with a sickening thud onto the uneven ground. Her companion groaned at that.

"Izumi, don't do that, you spent a lot on that thing!" she remembered very well the very amount of money her companion had to spend on the new amps she just manhandled. The girl whined about price so often that_ everyone_ knew how much they cost her. If (when?) these new amps break, they'd never survive the drama that will follow.

The ponytailed girl who was called Izumi just pouted back at her friend.

"I can't help it! I'm not as strong as you are, Rikkun." she eyed her brunette companion's arms with narrowed eyes "…you know, maybe I should take up drumming. They're doing wonders for your arms." She can feel the flabs on her biceps jiggle whenever she moved hers. UGH. It's mortifying.

Her companion laughed at that as she moved to lug off the last of their equipment and slammed the van's door close.

"You're not gonna last a day. You're complaining just from the weight of the amps, I can already see the sheer intensity of your bitching if you decided to take up drumming." Banging around on the drums might look easy to some people, but to be frank, it's a lot of hard work. You need stamina and strength to be able to keep up consistent beats, and the entire band relies heavily on you.

Izumi let out a sigh at that, knowing full well of the truth.

"You're right. What was I thinking." A dramatic sigh "well, there's no choice. You'll have to be my packing mule for the day, Tainaka Ritsu. For the sake of these expensive musical equipments."

Ritsu only laughed out loud in reply.

"Fat chance of that happening. Now get your fat-ass over here and help me lug these things."

"Hey! I don't appreciate the jab at my jigglies!"

The drummer just shook her head as she worked.

She didn't yet know what the world has waiting for her inside Serendipity.

* * *

The last time the raven haired bassist met this woman, she was in a state of numbing shock. Her brain didn't work that well, and she felt her mouth was running on its own accord. Mio couldn't remember the exact words she'd spoken to the woman, but it was either apologizing or thanking her. Never would she imagine that she'd meet said woman again just one day after their meeting, more over in this kind of specific setting.

"Ara." The older woman who was also Mio's savior yesterday blinked at the bassist in surprise "it's you."

Mio herself can only nod slowly as the people around them looked at the two in confusion. A look of recognition dawned on Azusa after a while however, signaled by the gasp she lets out, but Mugi and Yui were out of it. And so was Shingo.

"You guys knew each other?" the lone male of the group addressed the two women, who nodded at the same time. They both smiled when they realized it, and the older one turned to reply to him.

"We met yesterday," she skipped a lot of details, maybe because she knew that Mio'd be uncomfortable if they discuss the circumstances surrounding their first meeting "but that's about it. I never knew that they would be the guest you were talking about."

The guy just shrugged.

"Anyway, welcome to Serendipity" the lady smiled widely at her guests "I sure do hope that Shingo's been a good tour guide so far. He's a good kid, but his lack of knowledge about Tokyo can be a waste of time sometimes." She gave the lone man of the group a flat stare, who just sighed and rolled his eyes in return.

"And let me just apologize for the stupid thing he did a couple of weeks back," Mio was reminded when Shingo made that quip about HTT replacing their drummer. She immediately felt guilty about it. "I hope the invitation to Hell Fest will suffice? Just let me know if you guys need anything, okay? I'm in charge, so everything's on the house."

The girls blinked.

"You're in charge of Hell Fest?" Mugi quipped, not exactly expecting a woman dressed in stylish designer clothes to be the one managing over this indie band festival! "I thought it was that guy upstairs!" they met a scary businessman-looking person upstairs, and she'd thought that guy was the one in charge with how important he looked.

And judging from the look on her friends' face, they were thinking of the same thing.

The kind lady only blinked, before something quickly dawned on her. Frowning, she immediately turned to Shingo, who cringed in response. Damn, he forgot to introduce them!

"Sorry, I forgot," a sheepish smile and waved over at the girls "meet Houkago Teatime, they're the band I told you about over the phone the other week." Shingo told the lady in a casual tone "this is their first time in Tokyo."

Mio immediately took this chance to introduced herself "Ah—my name is Akiyama Mio," a short bow of gratitude was added "thank you for yesterday!" and at once her friends followed suit.

"Hirasawa Yui!" Yui gave the lady a friendly wave.

Mugi gave a polite short bow that was expected of an Ojou-sama "Kotomugi Tsumugi."

"And um, Nakano Azusa." Azusa, being one of the three people who were in on the secret, gave the lady a respectful nod of the head in recognition, which was acknowledged by her with a knowing smile.

"And then…meet one of Hell Fest's top brass executives and also Serendipity's sole owner," Shingo took the pause after the girls' intro to continue, this time waving over at the lady standing beside him "she loves The Beatles, afraid of bugs and her dream is to go to England and take a nap on Abbey Road." He paused for a second as though thinking of what else to add "…and she's also my crazy big sister, Kannagi Satoko."

Beat.

"EHHHHHH?"

Well, now Mio knew why Shingo could get his hands on 5 tickets and backstage passes so quickly.

Satoko smiled at the reaction and give the girls a peace sign after smacking Shingo on the head "Nice to meet you guys. I've heard from my little brother about your band, but I've never heard any of your songs. Have you guys released a CD before?"

"Nope," Yui shook her head "we've never released a CD but we have our songs uploaded online. We have quite a number under our name, don't we Mugi-chan?" she turned to the blonde who nodded at that.

"U-un. We've uploaded them to Itunes and SoundCloud so far."

Letting out a small hum, Satoko nodded in approval. Using the internet to promote songs was a pretty good decision. But she was pretty confused with their method. "Why not try and record a CD?" she asked as she led her guests over the basement's bar, intending to order them some drinks "If you guys have plenty of songs under your name, mini albums would be a better way to get a stable fanbase."

Mio helped pass around the soda-filled plastic cups around the group as she thought of her answer. They did talk about releasing a CD someday, like how their friends' band Love Crisis did when they were in high school, but there were a lot of things to think about. First of all was the lack of spare time to get together and make music, thanks to college that took most of their time. There was also the lack of funding to produce the CD itself. Mass producing a CD on their own won't be cheap, and getting Mugi's family to help them financially was out of the question. The band owed the Kotobuki family a lot, and they wouldn't want to trouble them anymore than they have to.

But most of all…it was because they're missing the vital part of their band.

"We thought about that before, making CDs I mean." the raven haired bassist of HTT finally answered "but we decided that we're not there yet." She played with her half-full plastic cup idly as she mulled over her words "we're….currently missing one of our members. And we'd like the band to be in a complete state before we do anything drastic…I guess."

Azusa watched her senpai silently for a moment before deciding to add her two cents to the conversation. Might as well right? Since they've come this far, a little promoting here wouldn't hurt their chances.

"We've been playing for the college audience so far and we think we did pretty well. You can give our songs a listen if you like?" her words were bold, for someone from a no-name college band. But Azusa didn't want to take back her offer. She felt that HTT had did a great job so far, and even though she's happy playing at their current level, she wanted more. She knew that they could get better than they are now and she knew her senpai would agree with her on this. There's nothing to lose even if her offer get rejected anyway, so it's all good.

And from the looks of it, the manager of Serendipity seems to agree with her.

"Sure, I'll be happy to. Do you guys have sample songs along with you?"

At this Shingo choked on his drink in excitement while the rest of the girls made some kind of weird happy noises.

"M-M-M-Mio-chan!"

Mio almost ripped her bag apart trying to grab her iPod, and her heart sank when she remembered that she left it in Shingo's van to charge "I don't have my iPod with me!"

Yui cringed at that before she dumped the content of her bag on the floor trying to look for her music player. She swore she brought it with her! Satoko can only watch the girls panic with a slightly amused look on her face while her own brother was busy browsing through the song list on his phone. He's trying to see if he has some of HTT's songs on his phone, he did listen to some of them during the band's studio sessions.

"He-here!"

Mugi turned out as the hero of the hour when she handed Satoko a mini USB stick. Mio recognized the USB as the particular one Mugi use to hold their copy of unfinished songs, the ones that're currently under production and usually raw and unpolished. To be very honest, Mio'd prefer to let Satoko listen to the better songs that they have, but under this circumstances they'd have to make do with this.

The short-haired manager of Serendipity simply thanked Mugi for the USB before walking away.

"Eh?" Azusa looked blankly after the woman, who was walking towards the sound control area "Where's she going with the USB?" they watched with baited breath as Satoko talked to a headphone-wearing guy and make some hand gestures before handing him the USB stick.

Yui was watching with a slightly open mouth, frowning at the sight "what's she's doing?" The headphone-wearing guy plugged the USB into the laptop that he was working in and immediately the projection screen stopped showing the band list logos and changed into showing the list of folders contained in Mugi's USB.

Mio couldn't believe it. Was Satoko serious?

"Damn." Shingo's cup tumbled and spilled its content on the ground, but the guy couldn't care any less about it. When he said to his sister that she should listen to the HTT's songs, he didn't mean for her to listen to them like this!

Mugi let out a shaky gasp out of nerves "…they're plugging it into the main sound system!" for the first time in a while, the blonde felt her legs turn into complete jelly. Having strangers listen to your songs was scary enough, but to have an entire building worth of musically-inclined strangers listen to your unpolished songs was another kind of scary.

It was terrifying.

She immediately turned to her bassist friend who was, as expected, turning pale in record time. The Ojou-sama scooted closer to Mio just in case she's going to fall over, because it looked like she's on the verge of doing so.

They all watch anxiously as the screen showed how the headphone-wearing guy went through the folder titled 'HTT Songs' and double clicked on the MP3 file on the top of the list. It took a while, but when the music finally came out of the speakers set around the room, Mugi immediately grabbed a hold of the bassist's shaking arm for safety reasons.

A short piano melody by Mugi started the song for a few seconds before it was followed by a tricky bass line courtesy of Mio. From there Azusa took the lead in guitar until Yui joined in, along with their bassist's alto voice. Said bassist wobbled on her spot dangerously when she heard her own voice over the speakers. It didn't even occur to her in her state of shock that people around them actually stopped what they were doing to listen to the song.

_What kind of tomorrow do I want, I wonder  
without even knowing anything I just wished for it, didn't I  
I feared my true self and ran away  
Straying off into that endless dream_

_I don't need a wish my hands can't reach  
the courage to softly hold your hand... is what I want_

_The star shines on the darkness and night of the changing world  
I am able to fly to the sky it leads me to  
All the constellations that were believed in and drawn came true  
Just like the promise we exchanged on that day  
I Believe_

This credit for this song's melody would have to go to Azusa and Yui. The two of them developed a nice guitar phrase during practice, a particularly up beat one that they felt was too good to be left just as a phrase alone. It took a while for them to turn the short phrase into an entire song, and honestly, without Mugi's help, Mio doubt that they'd be able to do it. Mugi, who had proper musical training from her childhood, was a vital figure for song arrangements. They were going to work more on this song if she wasn't mistaken, but then they got side tracked with the Tokyo trip and it's been put on hold ever since. Maybe that was why Mugi had the USB stick along with her today, she was going to bring this up with the band sometimes during the trip.

The bassist's eyes strayed around the room to watch the reaction of everyone who was listening to the song. There were some who were nodding along to the beat, and a few others have an expression of shock on their faces. There were also people who just shrugged and went back to work, ignoring the song, and this type of reaction was a hard one to receive for the already anxious members of the HTT.

Satoko herself was listening seriously, with her arms folded and brows furrowed thoughtfully ever since the song first started. The girls were worried about her reaction the most, because they were pretty insistent about getting her to listen to their songs, and it'd be embarrassing if she'd think that they're bad.

Finally, four minutes had passed and with it come the end of the song. They watched silently as the headphone-wearing guy say something to Satoko, who nodded back at him with a smile on her face. The girls turned to look at each other at this, wondering if this was a good sign and if it's okay to start cheering now. No one in the room was screaming out in anguish after listening to the song, so Mio think that they did a pretty good job.

"So?" Shingo asked his sister immediately when the woman rejoined them at the bar "what do you think?" he's actually pretty nervous himself. Along with many others, it was also his first time listening to this song. From the overall condition of it, it seems like the song was still in an unfinished state, but it was pretty good in his opinion. He just hoped his sister thinks the same way, that woman's pretty picky with her music.

The Serendipity owner handed the USB stick back to a nervous Mugi before answering.

"Well…" a long thoughtful hum as everyone waited with beating hearts "I think that was great for an unfinished song. The guitar duet around the middle was wonderful, but I think the tempo sounded a bit too hurried." At this Yui scratched the back of her head sheepishly while apologizing to Azusa. "The use of piano for this kind of upbeat song is a pretty wonderful idea as well. It's not too overwhelming, but consistent enough to let us hear the funky bass line." Mugi and Mio looked at each other with proud smiles on their faces.

Satoko couldn't help but be infected by the girls' mood herself, seeing the looks on their faces reminded her of the pure happiness musicians gets when their songs were received well by the masses.

"Overall, I think you guys did an awesome job! Houkago Teatime is certainly welcome for open nights. You guys would get a good chunk of audience with that kind of song. Since this place is big enough to contain 500ish people, I think you guys can get about more than half of that if you have a good set list."

Azusa couldn't really believe her ears at this "Oh my god." An open night at an established place like this would open up a big path for them in the music world!

"YAY! We're gonna do a live, Azu-nyan! A live in front of hundreds of people!"

"We did it! We did it, Mio-chan….Mio-chan?"

Everyone's eyes turned to the drummer who'd kept quiet for a while. She stood there frozen with the same proud smile on her face, not even batting an eyelash at Satoko's comment. Yui even waved a hand in front of her face, and only then did it dawn on the rest of the HTT.

"Ah. Mio-chan fainted."

* * *

She couldn't believe her ears.

She thought she was imagining things when she heard _her _voice over the speakers. But no, she wasn't delusional, and she certainly did not mistake someone else's voice for _her _voice. She knew that voice well enough to know that there's only one person in the world who has that raspy alto voice, and sing that passionately. She knew that familiar piano melody and the messy guitar playing she heard in the song used to be something she complained frequently about during high school.

Ignoring her companion, who was in a conversation with one of the staff, she immediately rushed out of the equipment room. There's only one place in this entire building that has main control the sound system during a festival like this.

"Hey," she walked over the sound control area and greeted the headphone-wearing guy who was busy listening to something in his laptop "dude-guy, were you the one playing the music just now?"

The guy took off his headphone and nodded, surprised by the sudden question "uh, yeah, I did."

"Whose song was that? Who gave it to you? "

The guy looked overwhelmed by her intense questionings "uh, I dunno. The manager gave a USB to me, telling me to play a song from the list."

Light brown brows furrowed "the manager? Satoko did?"

"Yeah. She got the USB from this bunch of girls that came here earlier." That guy then moved his laptop over to show this newcomer the screen. He had the SoundCloud website open "that song was pretty good wasn't it? I actually got hooked and ended up listening to their other songs. They have a pretty wacky name for a band with such good taste in music."

She swore her heart stopped for a damn second when she heard that last comment.

"Do you…remember the band's name?"

"Uh…yea, sure. It was something about tea. Uh….Houkago Teatime, I think." A glance at the computer screen, and he nodded "Yep. Houkago Teatime."

Drumsticks fell onto the ground with a loud clatter when their owner's grips went slack.

"...Are you serious?"

Ritsu never knew that the world could be this small.

* * *

**A/N**: It's been years hasn't it? What do you guys think of the chapter? HTT has an open offer to play live, and you get Ritsu's appearance at the same time. I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, though the grammar might be a bit messy since it's unbeta'ed. Let me know what you guys think of the chapter the usual way. I think it's safe to say that the awaited HTT reunion will happen in the next chapter.

For the songs, the one Mio was listening to in the beginning of the chapter was 'Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari' by Supercell and the one played in the venue was 'Starlog' by Choucho. I chose those two songs coz they have awesome piano in them, and have this HTT feel-ish to them.


End file.
